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These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:01,566 --> 00:00:03,000 ANNOUNCER: MAJOR SUPPORT FOR "THE VIETNAM WAR" 2 00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:06,500 WAS PROVIDED BY MEMBERS OF THE BETTER ANGELS SOCIETY, 3 00:00:06,500 --> 00:00:10,465 INCLUDING JONATHAN AND JEANNIE LAVINE, 4 00:00:10,465 --> 00:00:13,365 DIANE AND HAL BRIERLEY, 5 00:00:13,365 --> 00:00:15,766 AMY AND DAVID ABRAMS, 6 00:00:15,766 --> 00:00:18,265 JOHN AND CATHERINE DEBS, 7 00:00:18,265 --> 00:00:21,166 THE FULLERTON FAMILY CHARITABLE FUND, 8 00:00:21,166 --> 00:00:23,233 THE MONTRONE FAMILY, 9 00:00:23,233 --> 00:00:25,565 LYNDA AND STEWART RESNICK, 10 00:00:25,565 --> 00:00:28,332 THE PERRY AND DONNA GOLKIN FAMILY FOUNDATION, 11 00:00:28,332 --> 00:00:29,332 THE LYNCH FOUNDATION, 12 00:00:29,332 --> 00:00:32,200 THE ROGER AND ROSEMARY ENRICO FOUNDATION, 13 00:00:32,200 --> 00:00:35,633 AND BY THESE ADDITIONAL FUNDERS. 14 00:00:35,633 --> 00:00:37,533 MAJOR FUNDING WAS ALSO PROVIDED 15 00:00:37,533 --> 00:00:39,265 BY DAVID H. KOCH... 16 00:00:41,566 --> 00:00:43,765 THE BLAVATNIK FAMILY FOUNDATION... 17 00:00:46,100 --> 00:00:48,533 THE PARK FOUNDATION, 18 00:00:48,533 --> 00:00:50,700 THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES, 19 00:00:50,700 --> 00:00:52,899 THE PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS, 20 00:00:52,899 --> 00:00:55,566 THE JOHN S. AND JAMES L. KNIGHT FOUNDATION, 21 00:00:55,566 --> 00:00:58,332 THE ANDREW W. MELLON FOUNDATION, 22 00:00:58,332 --> 00:01:01,000 THE ARTHUR VINING DAVIS FOUNDATIONS, 23 00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:03,200 THE FORD FOUNDATION JUSTFILMS, 24 00:01:03,200 --> 00:01:04,400 BY THE CORPORATION 25 00:01:04,400 --> 00:01:05,632 FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING, 26 00:01:05,632 --> 00:01:07,599 AND BY VIEWERS LIKE YOU. 27 00:01:07,599 --> 00:01:08,733 THANK YOU. 28 00:01:13,266 --> 00:01:15,400 ANNOUNCER: BANK OF AMERICA PROUDLY SUPPORTS 29 00:01:15,400 --> 00:01:20,299 KEN BURNS' AND LYNN NOVICK'S FILM "THE VIETNAM WAR" 30 00:01:20,299 --> 00:01:22,700 BECAUSE FOSTERING DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES 31 00:01:22,700 --> 00:01:25,299 AND CIVIL DISCOURSE AROUND IMPORTANT ISSUES 32 00:01:25,299 --> 00:01:27,599 FURTHERS PROGRESS, EQUALITY, 33 00:01:27,599 --> 00:01:29,599 AND A MORE CONNECTED SOCIETY. 34 00:01:34,066 --> 00:01:38,099 GO TO BANKOFAMERICA.COM/ BETTERCONNECTED TO LEARN MORE. 35 00:01:50,500 --> 00:01:55,466 (people cheering, turkeys gobbling) 36 00:01:55,566 --> 00:01:58,966 ("Blues Run the Game" by Simon and Garfunkel playing) 37 00:02:08,365 --> 00:02:13,733 ♪ Catch a boat to England, baby, maybe to Spain ♪ 38 00:02:13,832 --> 00:02:15,966 ♪ Wherever I have gone 39 00:02:16,066 --> 00:02:19,466 ♪ Wherever I've been and gone 40 00:02:19,566 --> 00:02:23,733 ♪ Wherever I have gone the blues run the game. ♪ 41 00:02:26,000 --> 00:02:29,066 TIM O'BRIEN: I grew up in a small farming community 42 00:02:29,165 --> 00:02:32,566 in southern Minnesota called Worthington. 43 00:02:32,665 --> 00:02:35,466 Small town America-- at least my small town-- 44 00:02:35,566 --> 00:02:37,966 had great virtues. 45 00:02:38,066 --> 00:02:39,566 It was a safe place to grow up. 46 00:02:39,665 --> 00:02:42,466 There was Little League baseball in the summer, 47 00:02:42,566 --> 00:02:45,133 and there was hockey in the winter. 48 00:02:45,233 --> 00:02:48,699 SIMON AND GARFUNKEL: ♪ When I ain't drinkin', baby, you are on my mind. ♪ 49 00:02:48,800 --> 00:02:52,432 O'BRIEN: Everybody knows everyone else's business and their faults 50 00:02:52,533 --> 00:02:54,733 and what's happening in their marriages 51 00:02:54,832 --> 00:02:57,800 and where the kids have gone wrong. 52 00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:03,233 It was full of the Kiwanis boys and the Elks Club 53 00:03:03,332 --> 00:03:07,432 and the country club set and the kind of chatty housewives 54 00:03:07,532 --> 00:03:10,265 and the holier-than-thou ministers. 55 00:03:10,365 --> 00:03:12,332 SIMON AND GARFUNKEL: ♪ Wherever I've been and gone... ♪ 56 00:03:12,432 --> 00:03:15,432 O'BRIEN: I remember the day my draft notice arrived. 57 00:03:15,532 --> 00:03:21,000 It was a summer afternoon, maybe June of '68. 58 00:03:21,099 --> 00:03:23,665 And I remember taking that envelope into the house 59 00:03:23,765 --> 00:03:25,265 and putting it on the kitchen table 60 00:03:25,365 --> 00:03:28,233 where my mom and dad were having lunch. 61 00:03:28,332 --> 00:03:29,599 And they didn't even read it. 62 00:03:29,699 --> 00:03:32,165 They just looked at it and knew what it was. 63 00:03:32,265 --> 00:03:34,466 And the silence of that lunch-- 64 00:03:34,566 --> 00:03:37,900 I didn't speak, my mom didn't speak, my dad didn't speak-- 65 00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:39,432 was just that piece of paper 66 00:03:39,533 --> 00:03:41,599 lying at the center of the table. 67 00:03:41,699 --> 00:03:46,233 It was enough to make me cry to this day, not for myself, 68 00:03:46,332 --> 00:03:47,932 but for my mom and dad, 69 00:03:48,033 --> 00:03:51,533 who both of them had been in the Navy during World War II, 70 00:03:51,633 --> 00:03:55,500 had believed in service to one's country and all those values. 71 00:03:55,599 --> 00:03:59,566 HOWARD TUCKNER: ...considers all civilians potential enemies... 72 00:03:59,665 --> 00:04:05,000 O'BRIEN: On the one hand I did think the war was less than righteous. 73 00:04:07,133 --> 00:04:09,133 On the other hand I love my country. 74 00:04:09,233 --> 00:04:15,932 And I valued my life in a small town and my friends and family. 75 00:04:16,033 --> 00:04:20,165 And so the summer of '68, I wrestled with what to do, 76 00:04:20,266 --> 00:04:22,832 was for me, at least, more torturous 77 00:04:22,932 --> 00:04:27,365 and devastating and emotionally painful 78 00:04:27,466 --> 00:04:29,233 than anything that happened in Vietnam. 79 00:04:31,165 --> 00:04:35,932 In the end I just capitulated. 80 00:04:36,033 --> 00:04:41,966 And one day I got on a bus with other recent graduates, 81 00:04:42,066 --> 00:04:45,300 and we went over to Sioux Falls about 60 miles away, 82 00:04:45,399 --> 00:04:48,100 and raised our hands and got in the Army. 83 00:04:48,199 --> 00:04:51,500 But it wasn't a decision, it was a forfeiture of a decision. 84 00:04:51,600 --> 00:04:53,832 It was letting my body go, 85 00:04:53,932 --> 00:04:56,899 turning a switch in my conscience, 86 00:04:57,000 --> 00:04:58,800 just turning it off, 87 00:04:58,899 --> 00:05:02,500 so it wouldn't be barking at me saying, 88 00:05:02,600 --> 00:05:08,766 "You're doing a bad and evil and stupid and unpatriotic thing." 89 00:05:16,500 --> 00:05:20,365 Last week's casualty figures in the Vietnam War released today 90 00:05:20,466 --> 00:05:23,132 showed 299 Americans killed, the lowest figure in two months. 91 00:05:23,233 --> 00:05:25,332 ("Revolution 1" by the Beatles playing) 92 00:05:31,699 --> 00:05:34,932 (music continues, crowd shouting) 93 00:05:35,033 --> 00:05:39,365 ♪ You say you want a revolution ♪ 94 00:05:39,466 --> 00:05:45,199 ♪ Well, you know 95 00:05:45,300 --> 00:05:48,132 ♪ We all want to change the world ♪ 96 00:05:52,033 --> 00:05:56,432 ♪ You tell me that it's evolution ♪ 97 00:05:56,533 --> 00:06:00,699 ♪ Well, you know 98 00:06:00,800 --> 00:06:05,365 ♪ We all want to change the world ♪ 99 00:06:08,300 --> 00:06:13,733 ♪ But when you talk about destruction ♪ 100 00:06:13,833 --> 00:06:20,399 ♪ Don't you know that you can count me out, in ♪ 101 00:06:20,500 --> 00:06:24,966 ♪ Don't you know it's gonna be all right ♪ 102 00:06:25,065 --> 00:06:28,665 NARRATOR: By June of 1968, the spirit of revolution-- 103 00:06:28,766 --> 00:06:35,665 over the Vietnam War, over injustice, over human rights-- 104 00:06:35,766 --> 00:06:38,466 seemed to have spread everywhere. 105 00:06:42,165 --> 00:06:45,132 The pressure to bring an end to the war was building. 106 00:06:45,233 --> 00:06:47,832 President Lyndon Johnson had already decided 107 00:06:47,932 --> 00:06:49,632 not to run again, 108 00:06:49,733 --> 00:06:53,533 assassinations and unrest had staggered the nation, 109 00:06:53,632 --> 00:06:57,800 and the country was preparing to choose a new president. 110 00:06:59,600 --> 00:07:03,165 Meanwhile, American and North Vietnamese diplomats in Paris 111 00:07:03,266 --> 00:07:04,565 were getting nowhere. 112 00:07:04,665 --> 00:07:08,033 The communists insisted there could be 113 00:07:08,132 --> 00:07:10,432 no substantive negotiations 114 00:07:10,533 --> 00:07:15,466 until the United States stopped all bombing of North Vietnam. 115 00:07:15,565 --> 00:07:17,033 LENNON: ♪ With minds that hate... 116 00:07:17,132 --> 00:07:19,565 NARRATOR: The new secretary of defense, Clark Clifford, 117 00:07:19,665 --> 00:07:21,899 who had turned from hawk to dove 118 00:07:22,000 --> 00:07:24,266 after just a few months in office, 119 00:07:24,365 --> 00:07:27,665 begged the president to call a total halt. 120 00:07:27,766 --> 00:07:30,533 "We can only hope for success at the bargaining table," 121 00:07:30,632 --> 00:07:32,132 he told Johnson. 122 00:07:32,233 --> 00:07:34,832 "We are in a war we cannot win." 123 00:07:34,932 --> 00:07:38,665 The president refused to stop the bombing. 124 00:07:45,399 --> 00:07:46,766 Over the following months, 125 00:07:46,865 --> 00:07:49,432 there would be reports of progress on the battlefield 126 00:07:49,533 --> 00:07:51,632 and in the countryside. 127 00:07:51,733 --> 00:07:56,399 But that progress came so slowly and at so high a cost 128 00:07:56,500 --> 00:08:00,233 in human lives that the war against the war 129 00:08:00,333 --> 00:08:02,300 intensified back home, 130 00:08:02,399 --> 00:08:07,065 pitting classes and generations against one another, 131 00:08:07,165 --> 00:08:11,000 spreading distrust of political leaders who seemed unable 132 00:08:11,100 --> 00:08:14,365 or unwilling to bring the fighting to an end. 133 00:08:18,065 --> 00:08:20,565 Young men from all over the country would continue 134 00:08:20,665 --> 00:08:22,865 to face questions and choices 135 00:08:22,966 --> 00:08:26,365 their fathers and grandfathers had rarely had to face 136 00:08:26,466 --> 00:08:29,100 when asked to fight in other wars: 137 00:08:29,199 --> 00:08:33,899 What obligation did a citizen owe his country? 138 00:08:34,000 --> 00:08:37,200 What should one do when asked to fight a war 139 00:08:37,298 --> 00:08:39,832 in which one did not believe? 140 00:08:41,298 --> 00:08:45,399 How was a soldier to distinguish between a shadowy enemy 141 00:08:45,500 --> 00:08:49,765 and the Vietnamese civilians he was supposed to be defending? 142 00:08:49,865 --> 00:08:51,466 LENNON: ♪ Shoo-bee-do-wop 143 00:08:51,566 --> 00:08:54,100 ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh. 144 00:08:54,200 --> 00:08:57,500 NARRATOR: The coming summer of 1968 145 00:08:57,600 --> 00:09:00,033 would be one of the most consequential 146 00:09:00,133 --> 00:09:03,566 in American history. 147 00:09:03,666 --> 00:09:09,832 LENNON: ♪ All right, all right, all right, all right, all right ♪ 148 00:09:09,932 --> 00:09:13,100 ♪ All right, all right 149 00:09:13,200 --> 00:09:14,432 ♪ Shoo-bee-do-wop 150 00:09:14,533 --> 00:09:18,332 (song fades out) 151 00:09:19,500 --> 00:09:21,832 Earlier this year, top U.S. leaders vowed 152 00:09:21,932 --> 00:09:24,600 that the U.S. Marine outpost at Khe Sanh, 153 00:09:24,700 --> 00:09:29,166 then under a 77-day enemy siege, would be defended at all cost. 154 00:09:29,265 --> 00:09:30,832 (jet engine roars) 155 00:09:30,932 --> 00:09:32,500 (explosion) 156 00:09:34,365 --> 00:09:38,200 MAX CLELAND: Johnson had said in the fall of '67, 157 00:09:38,299 --> 00:09:40,332 and as we went into '68, 158 00:09:40,432 --> 00:09:43,332 "I don't want no damn Dien Bien Phu." 159 00:09:43,432 --> 00:09:48,365 So the whole American military, from the Joint Chiefs on down, 160 00:09:48,466 --> 00:09:52,299 whether they believed in saving Khe Sanh or not, 161 00:09:52,399 --> 00:09:55,466 were hell-bent for leather to make damn sure 162 00:09:55,566 --> 00:09:58,100 the siege was broken. 163 00:10:01,399 --> 00:10:04,500 Now the telltale moment of that is that a week 164 00:10:04,600 --> 00:10:05,799 after the siege was broken, 165 00:10:05,899 --> 00:10:09,399 they plowed the base under and abandoned it. 166 00:10:09,500 --> 00:10:13,600 That was Vietnam in a microcosm. 167 00:10:13,700 --> 00:10:15,899 (helicopter blades whirring) 168 00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:18,432 NARRATOR: There was a new commander in Vietnam now, 169 00:10:18,533 --> 00:10:23,399 General Creighton W. Abrams, a hero of World War II, 170 00:10:23,500 --> 00:10:26,000 a soldier's soldier, one reporter said, 171 00:10:26,100 --> 00:10:29,832 who "could inspire aggressiveness in a begonia." 172 00:10:29,932 --> 00:10:32,200 LEWIS SORLEY: Some newsman once described him 173 00:10:32,299 --> 00:10:35,832 as looking like an unmade bed smoking a cigar. 174 00:10:35,932 --> 00:10:38,000 He's gruff. 175 00:10:38,100 --> 00:10:39,232 He drank a lot. 176 00:10:39,332 --> 00:10:41,765 He's grumpy in the morning. 177 00:10:41,865 --> 00:10:44,832 Sometimes staff officers would schedule appointments with him 178 00:10:44,932 --> 00:10:45,966 in the morning 179 00:10:46,066 --> 00:10:47,700 for, with generals who were causing him trouble. 180 00:10:49,432 --> 00:10:52,566 NARRATOR: Abrams was a welcome new face for the American war. 181 00:10:52,665 --> 00:10:57,399 Reporters found him more frank and open than his predecessor. 182 00:10:57,500 --> 00:11:00,533 "The overall public affairs policy of this command," 183 00:11:00,633 --> 00:11:02,432 he told his subordinates, 184 00:11:02,533 --> 00:11:05,765 "will be to let results speak for themselves." 185 00:11:05,865 --> 00:11:09,633 "Occasionally," one officer said, "we are allowed 186 00:11:09,732 --> 00:11:14,666 to state frankly that we didn't do a damn thing this month." 187 00:11:14,765 --> 00:11:18,232 Many soldiers would believe for the rest of their lives 188 00:11:18,332 --> 00:11:20,932 that if Abrams had taken command sooner, 189 00:11:21,033 --> 00:11:23,399 the outcome could have been different. 190 00:11:30,332 --> 00:11:32,299 VINCENT OKAMOTO: You're told very succinctly, 191 00:11:32,399 --> 00:11:36,365 "We need to rack up as much body count as we can. 192 00:11:36,466 --> 00:11:39,265 How many gooks did you kill today?" 193 00:11:39,365 --> 00:11:41,700 And it was the kill ratio that determined 194 00:11:41,799 --> 00:11:43,899 whether or not you called it a victory or a loss. 195 00:11:44,000 --> 00:11:47,566 So if you killed 20 North Vietnamese 196 00:11:47,665 --> 00:11:49,765 and lost only two people, 197 00:11:49,865 --> 00:11:54,165 they declared a great victory for that particular firefight. 198 00:11:54,265 --> 00:11:59,399 NARRATOR: Lieutenant Vincent Okamoto was born during World War II 199 00:11:59,500 --> 00:12:02,100 in a Japanese-American internment camp 200 00:12:02,200 --> 00:12:07,600 at Poston, Arizona, the seventh son of Japanese immigrants. 201 00:12:07,700 --> 00:12:10,666 All six of his brothers had served in uniform-- 202 00:12:10,765 --> 00:12:15,033 two fought with the celebrated 442nd Regimental Combat Team 203 00:12:15,133 --> 00:12:16,932 in Italy and France, 204 00:12:17,033 --> 00:12:20,133 the most highly decorated unit of that war-- 205 00:12:20,232 --> 00:12:25,265 and so, when Okamoto's country went to war in Vietnam, 206 00:12:25,365 --> 00:12:27,466 he believed he should go, too. 207 00:12:29,299 --> 00:12:33,432 He was now a platoon leader with Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 208 00:12:33,533 --> 00:12:39,265 27th Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, based at Cu Chi, 209 00:12:39,365 --> 00:12:44,133 some 20 miles northwest of Saigon, an area honeycombed 210 00:12:44,232 --> 00:12:47,299 with miles of Viet Cong tunnels. 211 00:12:50,066 --> 00:12:52,566 OKAMOTO: My parents are Japanese immigrants. 212 00:12:52,665 --> 00:12:55,566 I had rice literally every day of my life 213 00:12:55,665 --> 00:12:58,865 until I went into the military. 214 00:13:00,633 --> 00:13:05,399 So we were conducting a cordon and search of a village. 215 00:13:07,399 --> 00:13:08,799 Didn't find any weapons, 216 00:13:08,899 --> 00:13:12,365 didn't find any communist literature or whatever. 217 00:13:12,466 --> 00:13:15,000 So we took a prolonged lunch break. 218 00:13:15,100 --> 00:13:18,432 Everybody wants to get out of the sun. 219 00:13:18,533 --> 00:13:21,732 Well, my RTO, my medic and I 220 00:13:21,832 --> 00:13:23,899 went into this particular house, and there was... 221 00:13:24,000 --> 00:13:27,166 there were three women, and a babe in arms, 222 00:13:27,265 --> 00:13:29,865 and a kid about four years old. 223 00:13:29,966 --> 00:13:33,932 And she was cooking... rice. 224 00:13:34,033 --> 00:13:36,299 Well, here, here's Okamoto, Mrs. Okamoto's son, 225 00:13:36,399 --> 00:13:40,100 that hadn't had rice now-- hot, steamed rice-- for months. 226 00:13:40,200 --> 00:13:42,932 I'm looking at it, it looks pretty good to me. 227 00:13:43,033 --> 00:13:44,966 So I-I get my interpreter. 228 00:13:45,066 --> 00:13:49,332 I said, "Hey, tell this woman, the grandma, 229 00:13:49,432 --> 00:13:52,765 "that I'll give her a pack of cigarettes, 230 00:13:52,865 --> 00:13:56,932 "my C-ration turkey loaf, and a can of peaches 231 00:13:57,033 --> 00:13:59,566 for some of that steamed rice and that fish and vegetables." 232 00:14:01,332 --> 00:14:02,432 It was great. 233 00:14:02,533 --> 00:14:04,332 And I asked for seconds. 234 00:14:04,432 --> 00:14:07,466 My RTO says, "Damn, ain't these people poor enough 235 00:14:07,566 --> 00:14:10,100 without you eating their food?" 236 00:14:10,200 --> 00:14:12,365 I said, "You know, hell, they got enough rice here 237 00:14:12,466 --> 00:14:15,066 to feed a dozen men." 238 00:14:15,166 --> 00:14:17,299 And then, it just dawned, 239 00:14:17,399 --> 00:14:19,432 they did have enough rice to feed a dozen men. 240 00:14:19,533 --> 00:14:23,332 So I had my interpreter ask the woman, 241 00:14:23,432 --> 00:14:25,500 "Who's all this rice for?" 242 00:14:25,600 --> 00:14:27,100 (speaking Vietnamese) 243 00:14:27,200 --> 00:14:28,700 "I don't know, I don't know." 244 00:14:28,799 --> 00:14:32,399 So we started looking around again. 245 00:14:32,500 --> 00:14:34,165 We found a tunnel mouth. 246 00:14:36,033 --> 00:14:38,033 I was given a grenade. 247 00:14:41,133 --> 00:14:43,765 After the smoke cleared, we pulled, I think, 248 00:14:43,865 --> 00:14:49,000 seven or eight bodies to the town square. 249 00:14:49,100 --> 00:14:54,365 And we wanted to see who would cry over these people. 250 00:14:54,466 --> 00:14:57,500 And then we'd have more people to question. 251 00:14:57,600 --> 00:15:01,932 The women that lived in that house, 252 00:15:02,033 --> 00:15:03,566 and I had eaten their rice, 253 00:15:03,666 --> 00:15:06,332 they're all squatting down, wailing. 254 00:15:06,432 --> 00:15:08,033 And you couldn't identify these, these... 255 00:15:08,133 --> 00:15:10,666 they're just charred bodies. 256 00:15:10,765 --> 00:15:12,232 Um... 257 00:15:12,332 --> 00:15:14,332 And I think that was the first time I knew 258 00:15:14,432 --> 00:15:17,066 that I personally had killed people. 259 00:15:17,166 --> 00:15:21,232 I got an "Attaboy" from the supervisor. 260 00:15:21,332 --> 00:15:22,732 But, uh... 261 00:15:22,832 --> 00:15:25,066 it wasn't something that you can say had glory in it, 262 00:15:25,166 --> 00:15:27,500 or you felt a real sense of accomplishment. 263 00:15:30,332 --> 00:15:33,500 NARRATOR: Over that summer, Okamoto was wounded two times 264 00:15:33,600 --> 00:15:36,665 and made 22 helicopter assaults, 265 00:15:36,765 --> 00:15:40,299 four of them as commander of Bravo Company. 266 00:15:40,399 --> 00:15:45,732 On the morning of August 23, he made his 23rd assault. 267 00:15:45,832 --> 00:15:50,033 Nineteen helicopters ferried the first and second platoons 268 00:15:50,133 --> 00:15:54,633 to a new landing zone near Cambodia. 269 00:15:54,732 --> 00:15:57,700 Their task was to dig in, stay put, 270 00:15:57,799 --> 00:16:01,700 and somehow block a battalion of North Vietnamese troops, 271 00:16:01,799 --> 00:16:05,000 who were trying to escape across the border. 272 00:16:05,100 --> 00:16:08,033 Okamoto's unit was reinforced by a platoon 273 00:16:08,133 --> 00:16:12,732 of mechanized infantry, three APCs, and a tank, 274 00:16:12,832 --> 00:16:16,932 but they were still badly outnumbered. 275 00:16:17,033 --> 00:16:21,000 He and the fewer than 150 men under his command 276 00:16:21,100 --> 00:16:24,066 spent the rest of that day and all of the next 277 00:16:24,166 --> 00:16:27,332 preparing as best they could for an attack, 278 00:16:27,432 --> 00:16:29,166 setting Claymore mines 279 00:16:29,265 --> 00:16:32,765 and hanging three coils of razor wire. 280 00:16:35,832 --> 00:16:38,500 OKAMOTO: August the 24th, about 10:00 that night, 281 00:16:38,600 --> 00:16:42,133 we got hit with a very heavy mortar barrage. 282 00:16:42,232 --> 00:16:43,500 (shouting, explosions) 283 00:16:43,600 --> 00:16:47,100 Within the first I would say ten seconds, 284 00:16:47,200 --> 00:16:50,732 all three of those armored personnel carriers and tanks 285 00:16:50,832 --> 00:16:53,232 were knocked out with rocket-propelled grenades. 286 00:16:57,000 --> 00:17:00,399 NARRATOR: Trip flares briefly lit up the landscape. 287 00:17:00,500 --> 00:17:03,133 Scores of enemy troops were running at them 288 00:17:03,232 --> 00:17:05,232 through the elephant grass. 289 00:17:05,333 --> 00:17:06,500 (gunfire) 290 00:17:06,598 --> 00:17:11,532 VC mortar shells blasted two gaps in the razor wire. 291 00:17:11,633 --> 00:17:15,299 If Okamoto and his outnumbered men couldn't plug them, 292 00:17:15,400 --> 00:17:17,865 they were sure to be overrun. 293 00:17:17,965 --> 00:17:21,700 He and the four men closest to him held their M-16s 294 00:17:21,799 --> 00:17:25,665 above their heads and fired blindly. 295 00:17:25,766 --> 00:17:28,432 The enemy kept coming. 296 00:17:28,532 --> 00:17:30,165 OKAMOTO: I had my four people. 297 00:17:30,266 --> 00:17:33,732 And through the light of the flares, I said, 298 00:17:33,833 --> 00:17:35,700 "A couple you guys go and man the machine guns 299 00:17:35,799 --> 00:17:37,200 out on those APCs." 300 00:17:37,299 --> 00:17:39,365 Well, the response I got was, like, uh... 301 00:17:39,465 --> 00:17:41,333 "Fuck you, I ain't going up there." 302 00:17:43,032 --> 00:17:47,532 So I ran to the first armored personnel carrier, and I... 303 00:17:47,633 --> 00:17:51,133 pulled the, the gunner out of the turret, dead. 304 00:17:51,232 --> 00:17:54,700 I jumped in there, manned the machine gun, 305 00:17:54,799 --> 00:17:57,532 and fired until it ran out of ammo. 306 00:17:57,633 --> 00:18:01,500 NARRATOR: Okamoto moved to the second disabled APC 307 00:18:01,599 --> 00:18:05,465 and then the third, emptying their guns. 308 00:18:05,566 --> 00:18:08,766 OKAMOTO: And they were still coming at us. 309 00:18:08,865 --> 00:18:12,500 So I crawled out there, till I was about ten meters from 'em. 310 00:18:12,599 --> 00:18:16,165 And I killed 'em with hand grenades. 311 00:18:16,266 --> 00:18:18,965 NARRATOR: Two enemy grenades fell near him 312 00:18:19,066 --> 00:18:21,532 and he managed to throw both back. 313 00:18:21,633 --> 00:18:25,365 But a third landed just beyond his reach. 314 00:18:25,465 --> 00:18:29,099 Shrapnel fragments peppered his legs and back. 315 00:18:31,066 --> 00:18:34,032 OKAMOTO: I just knew for sure I was going to die. 316 00:18:34,133 --> 00:18:36,165 "Okamoto, you're not going to make it out of here. 317 00:18:36,266 --> 00:18:37,500 "Mom's going to take it hard, 318 00:18:37,599 --> 00:18:40,799 but, you know, you're not going to make it out of here." 319 00:18:40,900 --> 00:18:42,232 And that's liberating. 320 00:18:42,333 --> 00:18:44,665 When you know you're going to die, you don't... 321 00:18:44,766 --> 00:18:46,099 the fear leaves. 322 00:18:46,200 --> 00:18:48,000 At least in my case, I was no longer afraid. 323 00:18:48,099 --> 00:18:50,099 I was just mad because here are all these little guys 324 00:18:50,200 --> 00:18:53,232 trying to kill my ass. 325 00:18:53,333 --> 00:18:55,165 And if that's the case, 326 00:18:55,266 --> 00:18:58,066 then I'm going to make it as tough on them as I possibly can 327 00:18:58,165 --> 00:18:59,133 before I go down. 328 00:19:01,865 --> 00:19:04,732 I killed a lot of brave men that night. 329 00:19:04,833 --> 00:19:06,965 And I rationalized that by telling myself, 330 00:19:07,066 --> 00:19:09,900 "Well, maybe what you did-- just maybe-- 331 00:19:10,000 --> 00:19:12,465 saved the lives of a couple of your people." 332 00:19:16,333 --> 00:19:20,165 NARRATOR: During the night, the enemy had slipped into Cambodia, 333 00:19:20,266 --> 00:19:23,633 dragging as many of their dead with them as they could. 334 00:19:26,400 --> 00:19:30,799 A third of Okamoto's company had been lost. 335 00:19:30,900 --> 00:19:33,232 ("The Lord Is in This Place" by Fairport Convention playing) 336 00:19:33,333 --> 00:19:34,833 For his efforts that day, 337 00:19:34,932 --> 00:19:38,766 Vincent Okamoto received the Distinguished Service Cross, 338 00:19:38,865 --> 00:19:42,333 the Army's second highest honor. 339 00:19:42,432 --> 00:19:44,833 Before his tour of duty ended, 340 00:19:44,932 --> 00:19:48,833 he would become the most highly decorated Japanese-American 341 00:19:48,932 --> 00:19:51,633 to survive the Vietnam War. 342 00:19:54,465 --> 00:19:56,066 OKAMOTO: You know what? 343 00:19:56,165 --> 00:19:57,566 (sighs) 344 00:19:57,665 --> 00:20:00,066 The real heroes are the men that died. 345 00:20:03,532 --> 00:20:07,133 19-, 20-year-old high school dropouts. 346 00:20:07,232 --> 00:20:09,566 They didn't have escape routes that the elite 347 00:20:09,665 --> 00:20:13,333 and the wealthy and the privileged had. 348 00:20:13,432 --> 00:20:14,365 And that was unfair. 349 00:20:17,500 --> 00:20:20,266 And so they looked upon military service as... 350 00:20:20,365 --> 00:20:22,032 (sighs) 351 00:20:22,133 --> 00:20:23,700 ...like the weather. 352 00:20:23,799 --> 00:20:25,665 You had to go in, and you'd do it. 353 00:20:27,599 --> 00:20:32,066 But to see these kids, who had the least to gain, 354 00:20:32,165 --> 00:20:33,500 there wasn't anything to look forward to; 355 00:20:33,599 --> 00:20:34,965 they weren't going to be rewarded 356 00:20:35,066 --> 00:20:38,032 for their service in Vietnam. 357 00:20:38,133 --> 00:20:43,766 And yet their infinite patience, their loyalty to each other, 358 00:20:43,865 --> 00:20:48,266 their courage under fire was just phenomenal. 359 00:20:49,465 --> 00:20:51,900 And you would ask yourself, 360 00:20:52,000 --> 00:20:55,865 "How does America produce young men like this?" 361 00:21:07,532 --> 00:21:11,032 HUY DUC: 362 00:21:35,766 --> 00:21:39,766 NARRATOR: At first, Radio Hanoi had portrayed the Tet Offensive 363 00:21:39,865 --> 00:21:42,633 as a series of "tremendous victories" 364 00:21:42,732 --> 00:21:46,232 in which "hundreds of thousands of people have risen up 365 00:21:46,333 --> 00:21:50,333 and destroyed enemy positions." 366 00:21:50,432 --> 00:21:54,232 "But after a couple of weeks," one North Vietnamese remembered, 367 00:21:54,333 --> 00:21:57,133 "we didn't hear any more news. 368 00:21:57,232 --> 00:21:59,500 "The Saigon regime was still there 369 00:21:59,599 --> 00:22:02,865 "and the U.S. planes were still bombing. 370 00:22:02,965 --> 00:22:06,665 It was obvious the radio wasn't telling the truth." 371 00:22:11,165 --> 00:22:13,900 Casualty figures were never revealed, 372 00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:17,599 but to North Vietnamese citizens secretly listening to reports 373 00:22:17,700 --> 00:22:20,299 on the BBC and Radio Saigon, 374 00:22:20,400 --> 00:22:23,665 it was clear that they had been heavy. 375 00:22:23,766 --> 00:22:28,333 PHAM LUC: 376 00:22:58,700 --> 00:23:02,232 HUY DUC: 377 00:23:25,333 --> 00:23:30,766 NARRATOR: In late August 1968, Le Duan and the North Vietnamese leadership 378 00:23:30,865 --> 00:23:33,833 launched still another offensive. 379 00:23:33,932 --> 00:23:37,633 The result was the same as Tet and Mini-Tet. 380 00:23:39,400 --> 00:23:44,965 They lost 17,000 more men. 381 00:23:45,066 --> 00:23:47,865 Thousands of fresh recruits had to be ordered south 382 00:23:47,965 --> 00:23:50,133 to replace them. 383 00:23:50,232 --> 00:23:52,833 "The war began to seem like an open pit," 384 00:23:52,932 --> 00:23:55,400 one North Vietnamese remembered. 385 00:23:55,500 --> 00:23:59,633 "The more young people were lost there, the more they sent." 386 00:24:01,032 --> 00:24:03,333 The sons of some party officials 387 00:24:03,432 --> 00:24:07,232 and their friends were sent abroad to escape the draft. 388 00:24:07,333 --> 00:24:09,566 University students were exempted. 389 00:24:09,665 --> 00:24:12,232 People with money bribed recruiters 390 00:24:12,333 --> 00:24:14,599 to overlook their offspring 391 00:24:14,700 --> 00:24:18,465 or paid physicians to declare them unfit to serve. 392 00:24:19,200 --> 00:24:22,532 HUY DUC: 393 00:24:35,799 --> 00:24:38,633 NARRATOR: Most draftees were poor people from the countryside, 394 00:24:38,732 --> 00:24:41,599 especially receptive to the slogans 395 00:24:41,700 --> 00:24:45,333 and promises of the revolution. 396 00:24:45,432 --> 00:24:47,633 Thousands of replacements made their way 397 00:24:47,732 --> 00:24:49,599 down the Ho Chi Minh Trail 398 00:24:49,700 --> 00:24:53,032 past burned-out vehicles and military graveyards, 399 00:24:53,133 --> 00:24:57,299 the stones neatly marked with the names of the dead 400 00:24:57,400 --> 00:24:59,732 and the date each had died. 401 00:25:01,732 --> 00:25:04,900 They encountered small groups of wounded men 402 00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:07,333 moving in the other direction. 403 00:25:07,432 --> 00:25:10,133 Those without arms walked. 404 00:25:10,232 --> 00:25:13,032 Legless men rode in camouflaged trucks. 405 00:25:13,133 --> 00:25:15,566 There were blinded soldiers 406 00:25:15,665 --> 00:25:19,865 and others who had been hideously burned by napalm. 407 00:25:19,965 --> 00:25:22,465 "You'll see all kinds of pleasures in the South," 408 00:25:22,566 --> 00:25:27,099 the weary wounded told the young men moving toward the war. 409 00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:30,599 "Everyone was frightened," a political officer remembered, 410 00:25:30,700 --> 00:25:33,700 "especially when we met those men. 411 00:25:33,799 --> 00:25:36,932 It was like looking at our future selves." 412 00:25:40,665 --> 00:25:43,133 The youngest delegate of the New Jersey delegation 413 00:25:43,232 --> 00:25:45,766 casts his vote for the next president of the United States, 414 00:25:45,865 --> 00:25:46,900 Richard Nixon. 415 00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:50,665 We've got 18. 416 00:25:50,766 --> 00:25:52,799 David, we doubled it, 18. 417 00:25:52,900 --> 00:25:55,333 NARRATOR: Richard Nixon had been a prominent 418 00:25:55,432 --> 00:25:58,365 and controversial figure in American politics 419 00:25:58,465 --> 00:26:01,365 for more than two decades. 420 00:26:01,465 --> 00:26:03,732 He'd been a congressman and senator, 421 00:26:03,833 --> 00:26:06,799 best known for his fierce anticommunism, 422 00:26:06,900 --> 00:26:09,099 then served eight years 423 00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:12,266 as Dwight Eisenhower's vice president. 424 00:26:12,365 --> 00:26:15,232 He narrowly lost the presidential race 425 00:26:15,333 --> 00:26:18,099 to John Kennedy in 1960 426 00:26:18,200 --> 00:26:20,365 and was defeated again two years later 427 00:26:20,465 --> 00:26:23,599 trying to become governor of California. 428 00:26:23,700 --> 00:26:27,865 His career seemed to be over. 429 00:26:27,965 --> 00:26:32,000 But then, in one of the most extraordinary comebacks 430 00:26:32,099 --> 00:26:34,232 in U.S. political history, 431 00:26:34,333 --> 00:26:36,665 he had outsmarted and out-maneuvered 432 00:26:36,766 --> 00:26:38,633 and out-campaigned his rivals 433 00:26:38,732 --> 00:26:43,432 to win the 1968 Republican nomination. 434 00:26:43,532 --> 00:26:45,365 MAN: Richard M. Nixon... 435 00:26:45,465 --> 00:26:46,965 (cheering and applause) 436 00:26:50,032 --> 00:26:52,900 His pick for vice president was the tough-talking 437 00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:57,266 but largely unknown governor of Maryland, Spiro Agnew. 438 00:26:59,333 --> 00:27:01,333 Nixon made the case for himself 439 00:27:01,432 --> 00:27:04,965 as the man who could bring a fractured America together 440 00:27:05,066 --> 00:27:09,000 and bring an honorable end to the war. 441 00:27:09,099 --> 00:27:12,732 When the strongest nation in the world can be tied down 442 00:27:12,833 --> 00:27:16,732 for four years in a war in Vietnam with no end in sight; 443 00:27:16,833 --> 00:27:18,633 when the richest nation in the world can't manage 444 00:27:18,732 --> 00:27:20,633 its own economy; 445 00:27:20,732 --> 00:27:22,633 when the nation with the greatest tradition 446 00:27:22,732 --> 00:27:26,500 of the rule of law is plagued by unprecedented lawlessness; 447 00:27:26,599 --> 00:27:29,799 when a nation that has been known for a century 448 00:27:29,900 --> 00:27:31,299 for equality of opportunity 449 00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:34,799 is torn by unprecedented racial violence; 450 00:27:34,900 --> 00:27:36,965 and when the president of the United States 451 00:27:37,066 --> 00:27:40,732 cannot travel abroad or to any major city at home 452 00:27:40,833 --> 00:27:43,432 without fear of a hostile demonstration, 453 00:27:43,532 --> 00:27:45,900 then it's time for new leadership 454 00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:47,700 for the United States of America. 455 00:27:47,799 --> 00:27:49,900 (cheering) 456 00:27:56,633 --> 00:27:58,633 Good evening from Chicago, 457 00:27:58,732 --> 00:28:00,932 where the 35th National Democratic Convention 458 00:28:01,032 --> 00:28:04,566 opens tomorrow with the promise of turmoil inside this hall 459 00:28:04,665 --> 00:28:06,532 and a threat of violence without. 460 00:28:06,633 --> 00:28:10,465 JOHN LAURENCE: Both sides moved in their troops on a balmy Sunday morning 461 00:28:10,566 --> 00:28:12,766 for the confrontation of Chicago. 462 00:28:12,865 --> 00:28:14,833 Some 6,000 crack Army troops, 463 00:28:14,932 --> 00:28:17,732 riot trained and ready for action... 464 00:28:17,833 --> 00:28:21,365 The Army soldiers moved out to secret locations around the city 465 00:28:21,465 --> 00:28:24,032 after one of the largest troop movements in domestic history. 466 00:28:26,700 --> 00:28:30,865 NARRATOR: Some 15,000 protestors had gathered in Chicago, 467 00:28:30,965 --> 00:28:34,365 most to register their anguish over the war... 468 00:28:36,599 --> 00:28:39,599 Some bent on disrupting the convention. 469 00:28:42,865 --> 00:28:46,633 Richard J. Daley, the Democratic mayor of Chicago, 470 00:28:46,732 --> 00:28:50,566 was determined that there be no trouble in his city. 471 00:28:52,333 --> 00:28:56,665 Twelve thousand Chicago policemen were on alert. 472 00:28:56,766 --> 00:29:00,099 In addition to the 6,000 U.S. Army troops, 473 00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:03,965 there were 6,000 more armed National Guardsmen 474 00:29:04,066 --> 00:29:07,932 and a thousand intelligence agents from the FBI, 475 00:29:08,032 --> 00:29:11,165 the CIA, and the military. 476 00:29:12,599 --> 00:29:15,432 Mayor Daley cordoned off the Chicago Amphitheater 477 00:29:15,532 --> 00:29:17,066 where the convention was being held 478 00:29:17,165 --> 00:29:20,599 and denied the protestors permits to march 479 00:29:20,700 --> 00:29:23,299 or to sleep in the city's parks. 480 00:29:24,633 --> 00:29:26,500 INTERVIEWER: Are you planning to go without the permit 481 00:29:26,599 --> 00:29:27,732 if you don't get the permit? 482 00:29:27,833 --> 00:29:29,200 RENNIE DAVIS: Given the fact 483 00:29:29,299 --> 00:29:32,865 that for many months we have notified this city 484 00:29:32,965 --> 00:29:36,700 and this nation that we wish to hold a demonstration, 485 00:29:36,799 --> 00:29:38,566 an assembly in Chicago 486 00:29:38,665 --> 00:29:41,165 to register our convictions about the war, 487 00:29:41,266 --> 00:29:44,665 the tens of thousands of people coming to the city of Chicago 488 00:29:44,766 --> 00:29:46,532 constitute a permit. 489 00:29:48,599 --> 00:29:50,766 Our fight is with the militarism 490 00:29:50,865 --> 00:29:52,566 that is developing in this country 491 00:29:52,665 --> 00:29:55,500 in the response to legitimate political and social grievances 492 00:29:55,599 --> 00:29:57,465 by bringing in troops 493 00:29:57,566 --> 00:30:00,432 rather than dealing with the real issues and real problems. 494 00:30:03,932 --> 00:30:06,099 CRONKITE: In the name of security, freedom of the press, 495 00:30:06,200 --> 00:30:08,432 freedom of movement, perhaps as far 496 00:30:08,532 --> 00:30:10,566 as the demonstrators themselves are concerned, 497 00:30:10,665 --> 00:30:14,766 even freedom of speech have been severely restricted here. 498 00:30:14,865 --> 00:30:19,932 A democratic convention is about to begin in a police state. 499 00:30:20,032 --> 00:30:22,599 There just doesn't seem to be any other way to say it. 500 00:30:24,766 --> 00:30:27,200 JOHN BAILEY: Will the delegates please be seated. 501 00:30:27,299 --> 00:30:29,232 NARRATOR: Vice President Hubert Humphrey, 502 00:30:29,333 --> 00:30:32,766 President Johnson's chosen successor, was the frontrunner. 503 00:30:32,865 --> 00:30:37,000 He had always been a hero to his party's liberal wing, 504 00:30:37,099 --> 00:30:40,000 but because he had loyally supported the president 505 00:30:40,099 --> 00:30:43,965 and the war, many delegates, and most of the demonstrators 506 00:30:44,066 --> 00:30:48,200 outside the convention hall, backed his antiwar rival, 507 00:30:48,299 --> 00:30:51,066 Senator Eugene McCarthy. 508 00:30:51,165 --> 00:30:54,266 (muffled shouting on megaphone) 509 00:30:54,365 --> 00:30:56,833 On the second night of the convention, 510 00:30:56,932 --> 00:30:59,000 the police drove hundreds of demonstrators 511 00:30:59,099 --> 00:31:02,965 out of Lincoln Park with clubs and tear gas. 512 00:31:03,066 --> 00:31:04,732 (sirens wailing) 513 00:31:08,333 --> 00:31:11,032 JOHN CHANCELLOR: The delegates wearing bands of black crepe on their arms... 514 00:31:11,133 --> 00:31:14,299 NARRATOR: The next afternoon, the Democrats heatedly debated 515 00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:18,900 a plank in the party platform calling for an end to the war. 516 00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:22,500 When Humphrey supporters voted it down, 517 00:31:22,599 --> 00:31:26,266 the antiwar delegates erupted. 518 00:31:26,365 --> 00:31:28,766 CHANCELLOR: ...who have joined New York in this extraordinary demonstration 519 00:31:28,865 --> 00:31:33,365 of antiwar sentiment on the convention floor. 520 00:31:33,465 --> 00:31:35,365 ("Street Fighting Man" by the Rolling Stones playing) 521 00:31:35,465 --> 00:31:37,633 DOUGLAS KIKER (on TV): The demonstrators resisted when police attempted to arrest 522 00:31:37,732 --> 00:31:40,032 a young man who tried to rip down an American flag. 523 00:31:40,133 --> 00:31:42,232 PROTESTOR: Watch... watch these fuckers. 524 00:31:42,333 --> 00:31:44,165 Don't turn your back on these fuckers! 525 00:31:47,032 --> 00:31:50,900 MICK JAGGER: ♪ Everywhere I hear the sound of marching... ♪ 526 00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:52,266 PHILIP CAPUTO: The cops were all... 527 00:31:52,365 --> 00:31:53,900 they were guys from the neighborhoods-- 528 00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:57,599 Italians, Polish guys, Irish guys. 529 00:31:57,700 --> 00:32:00,032 Probably some of them had been in Vietnam. 530 00:32:00,133 --> 00:32:01,633 And if they hadn't been, 531 00:32:01,732 --> 00:32:05,766 they certainly had cousins or brothers who were. 532 00:32:05,865 --> 00:32:10,165 NARRATOR: Philip Caputo, who had fought with the Marines in Vietnam, 533 00:32:10,266 --> 00:32:12,066 was now a reporter, 534 00:32:12,165 --> 00:32:16,066 assigned to cover the conflict in American streets. 535 00:32:16,165 --> 00:32:18,965 Get a picture of them throwing the rocks! 536 00:32:21,099 --> 00:32:23,066 CAPUTO: So all of a sudden the streets are filled 537 00:32:23,165 --> 00:32:25,333 with these kids who don't look like college kids 538 00:32:25,432 --> 00:32:27,932 are supposed to look in the cops' view. 539 00:32:28,032 --> 00:32:29,833 (protestors shouting, sirens wailing) 540 00:32:29,932 --> 00:32:31,532 (explosion) 541 00:32:31,633 --> 00:32:33,299 And some of them were committing vandalism 542 00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:37,099 and yelling obscenities. 543 00:32:37,200 --> 00:32:40,665 And I think a lot of policemen saw that 544 00:32:40,766 --> 00:32:47,032 as abusing the privileges that they had and scorning them. 545 00:32:47,133 --> 00:32:48,532 They are provoking us 546 00:32:48,633 --> 00:32:51,566 but we do not want to confront them now-- move back, please. 547 00:32:51,665 --> 00:32:53,865 JAGGER: ♪ Well, then what can a poor boy do ♪ 548 00:32:53,965 --> 00:32:57,665 ♪ Except to sing for a rock 'n' roll band ♪ 549 00:32:57,766 --> 00:33:00,532 ♪ 'Cause in sleepy London town 550 00:33:00,633 --> 00:33:03,932 ♪ There's just no place for a street fighting man ♪ 551 00:33:04,032 --> 00:33:08,599 (police chanting): Move back! Move back! 552 00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:13,865 (screaming) 553 00:33:20,333 --> 00:33:26,000 That's a report, on film, from Grant Park, downtown Chicago. 554 00:33:28,266 --> 00:33:30,633 NARRATOR: That evening, thousands of demonstrators, 555 00:33:30,732 --> 00:33:33,833 barred from getting anywhere near the convention, 556 00:33:33,932 --> 00:33:37,833 were marching toward Democratic Party headquarters 557 00:33:37,932 --> 00:33:41,066 in the Hilton Hotel on Michigan Avenue instead. 558 00:33:41,165 --> 00:33:44,566 ALINE SAARINEN: The marchers seem to have come from everywhere 559 00:33:44,665 --> 00:33:48,099 and now are coming up south on Michigan Avenue 560 00:33:48,200 --> 00:33:49,566 back toward the point where 561 00:33:49,665 --> 00:33:53,500 the police were blocking them before. 562 00:33:55,599 --> 00:33:56,965 NATIONAL GUARDSMAN: Get your hands up! 563 00:33:57,066 --> 00:33:58,599 Hands up! 564 00:33:58,700 --> 00:33:59,932 Come on! 565 00:34:00,032 --> 00:34:02,900 (shouting) 566 00:34:07,932 --> 00:34:09,766 Come on now! Go! Go! 567 00:34:09,865 --> 00:34:13,565 I place before you for the Democratic nomination 568 00:34:13,666 --> 00:34:16,365 as president of the United States 569 00:34:16,465 --> 00:34:20,733 the name of Senator Eugene J. McCarthy of Minnesota. 570 00:34:20,833 --> 00:34:24,900 (cheers and applause) 571 00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:29,233 Downtown Chicago at Balbo and Michigan Avenues, 572 00:34:29,333 --> 00:34:33,000 there has been in progress for some time a peace demonstration. 573 00:34:33,099 --> 00:34:35,365 The police have come to put it down. 574 00:34:35,465 --> 00:34:37,965 The National Guard has been called to help. 575 00:34:38,065 --> 00:34:41,465 (crowd chanting "sieg heil" at police) 576 00:34:48,965 --> 00:34:52,965 (chanting continues) 577 00:34:53,065 --> 00:34:57,300 (siren wails) 578 00:34:58,632 --> 00:35:03,865 (screaming) 579 00:35:03,965 --> 00:35:05,465 MAN: Get him! 580 00:35:05,565 --> 00:35:08,099 Get him! Get him! 581 00:35:16,666 --> 00:35:18,599 GABE PRESSMAN: ...people screaming... 582 00:35:18,699 --> 00:35:20,032 JAMES WILLBANKS: I turned on the television. 583 00:35:20,132 --> 00:35:21,900 I don't think I was too particularly thoughtful 584 00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:23,300 as a junior in college, 585 00:35:23,400 --> 00:35:26,666 but I thought the country was coming apart at the seams. 586 00:35:26,766 --> 00:35:28,900 It looked like we were devolving into madness. 587 00:35:30,666 --> 00:35:34,532 And I couldn't tell, was it protestors or the police 588 00:35:34,632 --> 00:35:35,599 or was everybody insane? 589 00:35:35,699 --> 00:35:39,532 (crowd chanting) 590 00:35:39,632 --> 00:35:41,333 (gavel pounding) 591 00:35:41,432 --> 00:35:44,065 NARRATOR: At the convention there was more confusion. 592 00:35:44,166 --> 00:35:47,166 Some antiwar delegates once pledged 593 00:35:47,266 --> 00:35:50,465 to the murdered Robert Kennedy now threw their support 594 00:35:50,565 --> 00:35:52,565 behind yet another candidate, 595 00:35:52,666 --> 00:35:56,266 South Dakota senator George McGovern. 596 00:35:56,365 --> 00:35:59,599 ABRAHAM RIBICOFF: And with George McGovern as president of the United States, 597 00:35:59,699 --> 00:36:03,599 we wouldn't have to have Gestapo tactics 598 00:36:03,699 --> 00:36:07,465 in the streets of Chicago. 599 00:36:07,565 --> 00:36:14,233 (crowd reacts boisterously) 600 00:36:14,333 --> 00:36:16,666 PRESSMAN: The persistent chanting by the crowd, 601 00:36:16,766 --> 00:36:18,965 "The whole world is watching." 602 00:36:19,065 --> 00:36:22,266 NARRATOR: LBJ, watching the chaos on television, 603 00:36:22,365 --> 00:36:24,233 considered flying to Chicago 604 00:36:24,333 --> 00:36:27,465 and getting back in the race himself. 605 00:36:27,565 --> 00:36:30,500 Mayor Daley told the president he'd have enough delegates 606 00:36:30,599 --> 00:36:32,400 to win the nomination, 607 00:36:32,500 --> 00:36:36,800 but the Secret Service warned it could not guarantee his safety. 608 00:36:41,266 --> 00:36:45,766 RON FERRIZZI: I got to Australia the last week of August 1968-- R&R. 609 00:36:45,865 --> 00:36:48,365 I never really wanted to go on R&R. 610 00:36:48,465 --> 00:36:50,965 I felt that, how can you relax? 611 00:36:51,065 --> 00:36:54,733 So I turn on the TV and the first scene... 612 00:36:54,833 --> 00:36:57,000 The TV gets bright. 613 00:36:57,099 --> 00:36:59,599 The first scene on... it was the camera... 614 00:36:59,699 --> 00:37:03,599 was a close-up, was over the shoulder of this storm trooper 615 00:37:03,699 --> 00:37:05,900 who had a kid by the scruff of his shirt. 616 00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:08,532 And he smacks him with his bat. 617 00:37:08,632 --> 00:37:11,632 And there's blood and everything and all this jumble. 618 00:37:11,733 --> 00:37:14,400 And then the camera pans out and it's far away. 619 00:37:14,500 --> 00:37:16,065 And these riots and there's fighting going on. 620 00:37:16,166 --> 00:37:17,733 And I go, "Oh, my God, 621 00:37:17,833 --> 00:37:19,532 the Russians invaded Czechoslovakia." 622 00:37:19,632 --> 00:37:22,532 And then ditto, ditto, ditto, "Chicago Democratic Convention, 623 00:37:22,632 --> 00:37:24,400 United States of America." 624 00:37:24,500 --> 00:37:27,000 And I said... you know, at that moment my... 625 00:37:27,099 --> 00:37:29,000 I-I was politicized. 626 00:37:29,099 --> 00:37:31,965 ("For What It's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield playing) 627 00:37:38,965 --> 00:37:43,132 ♪ There's somethin' happenin' here ♪ 628 00:37:43,233 --> 00:37:46,365 ♪ What it is ain't exactly clear ♪ 629 00:37:46,465 --> 00:37:48,233 FERRIZZI: At that moment in time, 630 00:37:48,333 --> 00:37:51,400 I realized that anybody who really cared for America 631 00:37:51,500 --> 00:37:54,766 was sent halfway around the world chasing some ghost 632 00:37:54,865 --> 00:37:57,766 in the jungle, killing somebody else's grandmother 633 00:37:57,865 --> 00:37:59,766 for no reason at all. 634 00:37:59,865 --> 00:38:01,932 BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD: ♪ What's that sound, everybody look what's going down ♪ 635 00:38:02,032 --> 00:38:05,666 FERRIZZI: And, in the meantime, my country's being torn apart. 636 00:38:05,766 --> 00:38:07,632 So I saw somebody who looked like my dad 637 00:38:07,733 --> 00:38:09,166 hitting somebody who looked like me. 638 00:38:09,266 --> 00:38:13,166 Oh, my God, whose side would I be on? 639 00:38:13,266 --> 00:38:16,599 BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD: ♪ There's battle lines being drawn ♪ 640 00:38:16,699 --> 00:38:22,965 ♪ Nobody's right if everybody's wrong ♪ 641 00:38:23,065 --> 00:38:26,833 ♪ Young people speakin' their minds ♪ 642 00:38:26,932 --> 00:38:30,900 ♪ Getting so much resistance from behind ♪ 643 00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:32,000 ♪ It's time we stop 644 00:38:32,099 --> 00:38:33,666 NARRATOR: In the end, 645 00:38:33,766 --> 00:38:36,733 Humphrey won the nomination on the first ballot. 646 00:38:36,833 --> 00:38:39,300 He told the press how pleased he was, 647 00:38:39,400 --> 00:38:43,432 but he confessed to his wife that the convention had left him 648 00:38:43,532 --> 00:38:47,365 feeling heartbroken, battered, and beaten, 649 00:38:47,465 --> 00:38:49,599 as if he'd survived a shipwreck. 650 00:38:51,632 --> 00:38:54,233 A presidential commission would declare what had happened 651 00:38:54,333 --> 00:38:58,565 in Chicago a "police riot," but in a Gallup poll, 652 00:38:58,666 --> 00:39:02,000 56% of Americans approved 653 00:39:02,099 --> 00:39:05,733 of the way the police had handled the demonstrators. 654 00:39:05,833 --> 00:39:10,000 And when Richard Nixon chose to open his campaign 655 00:39:10,099 --> 00:39:12,266 with a motorcade through the Chicago Loop, 656 00:39:12,365 --> 00:39:16,900 nearly half a million Chicagoans turned out to cheer him. 657 00:39:24,065 --> 00:39:26,000 MICHAEL HOLMES (on tape): Hello, Mom, Pop. 658 00:39:26,099 --> 00:39:28,300 I really can't tell you too much about this country 659 00:39:28,400 --> 00:39:30,065 except the rice paddies stink. 660 00:39:30,166 --> 00:39:34,432 And it's just miles and miles of nothing but rice paddies. 661 00:39:34,532 --> 00:39:35,932 And they got dikes in them. 662 00:39:36,032 --> 00:39:36,965 Real cool looking. 663 00:39:37,065 --> 00:39:38,666 We go through them with our APCs 664 00:39:38,766 --> 00:39:41,132 and tear them down and everything else. 665 00:39:41,233 --> 00:39:45,233 ("Road to Marscota" by Peter Walker playing) 666 00:39:45,333 --> 00:39:49,300 NARRATOR: On August 29, the day after police and demonstrators clashed 667 00:39:49,400 --> 00:39:53,166 in Chicago, 20-year-old private Michael Holmes 668 00:39:53,266 --> 00:39:56,599 arrived in Vietnam. 669 00:39:56,699 --> 00:40:00,632 He was born and brought up in the tiny town of Williamsville, 670 00:40:00,733 --> 00:40:03,333 in the heart of the Missouri Ozarks. 671 00:40:03,432 --> 00:40:05,833 His father and mother ran the general store 672 00:40:05,932 --> 00:40:08,565 where Michael worked every day after school. 673 00:40:08,666 --> 00:40:12,599 He floated the rivers, hunted deer and squirrels, 674 00:40:12,699 --> 00:40:15,699 and was going steady with a girl named Darlene. 675 00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:19,699 He had trouble keeping up in high school, 676 00:40:19,800 --> 00:40:23,333 did not complete community college and, as a result, 677 00:40:23,432 --> 00:40:27,365 was immediately drafted into the Army. 678 00:40:27,465 --> 00:40:32,500 In Vietnam, he was assigned to F Troop, 17th Armored Cavalry, 679 00:40:32,599 --> 00:40:35,965 196th Light Infantry Brigade, 680 00:40:36,065 --> 00:40:38,632 stationed at an isolated firebase 681 00:40:38,733 --> 00:40:43,865 22 miles south of Danang called Baldy. 682 00:40:43,965 --> 00:40:46,400 HOLMES (on tape): So you ask what the size of Baldy was. 683 00:40:46,500 --> 00:40:49,300 Well, it's just about as big as Williamsville 684 00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:52,565 and maybe a little bit bigger. 685 00:40:52,666 --> 00:40:56,865 I sent you a picture of me and a bunch of the other guys. 686 00:41:00,733 --> 00:41:02,465 It's not really that bad. 687 00:41:02,565 --> 00:41:04,199 It's... in a way I like it. 688 00:41:04,300 --> 00:41:06,333 It's just being away from home 689 00:41:06,432 --> 00:41:08,166 and everything that I don't like. 690 00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:15,266 NARRATOR: In Williamsville, family and friends gathered to listen 691 00:41:15,365 --> 00:41:17,733 to Michael's reports from Vietnam 692 00:41:17,833 --> 00:41:22,099 and to fill him in on what was happening back home. 693 00:41:22,199 --> 00:41:25,166 WOMAN (on tape): We're all down here at your dad and mother's tonight 694 00:41:25,266 --> 00:41:28,465 and we thought we'd all say something for you. 695 00:41:28,565 --> 00:41:33,465 And you could hear our voice and feel like you's back home. 696 00:41:33,565 --> 00:41:34,465 And we're looking forward... 697 00:41:34,565 --> 00:41:35,900 HAROLD (on tape): Hello, Mike. 698 00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:37,733 I've been doing a lot of squirrel hunting lately, 699 00:41:37,833 --> 00:41:39,965 and killing quite a few. 700 00:41:40,065 --> 00:41:43,333 Well, the Ozarks really look beautiful this time of year. 701 00:41:43,432 --> 00:41:44,733 Looking forward to seeing you. 702 00:41:44,833 --> 00:41:46,432 JERRY (on tape): Uh, this is Jerry, Mike. 703 00:41:46,532 --> 00:41:49,733 I think Ricky and Carol broke up, Mike. 704 00:41:49,833 --> 00:41:51,632 Ricky, he's really prowling now. 705 00:41:51,733 --> 00:41:54,532 GLENDA (on tape): Mike, this is Glenda. 706 00:41:54,632 --> 00:41:57,833 Um, I got a boyfriend, and his name's Danny. 707 00:41:57,932 --> 00:41:59,132 And... 708 00:41:59,233 --> 00:42:00,865 GLEN (on tape): Mike, this is Glen. 709 00:42:00,965 --> 00:42:03,300 All these other boys been talking about hunting, 710 00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:05,132 I'm gonna talk about girls. 711 00:42:05,233 --> 00:42:08,065 (chuckling): Girls and fast cars. 712 00:42:08,166 --> 00:42:11,132 Gene Bilbury got him a new Bonneville. 713 00:42:11,233 --> 00:42:14,632 MICHAEL'S MOTHER (on tape): Michael, this is Mother. 714 00:42:14,733 --> 00:42:18,099 The picture you sent us was real good, it looked just like you. 715 00:42:18,199 --> 00:42:22,065 I even liked that moustache, and I didn't think I would. 716 00:42:22,166 --> 00:42:23,666 And we miss you a lot. 717 00:42:23,766 --> 00:42:25,632 MICHAEL'S FATHER (on tape): This is your dad talking. 718 00:42:25,733 --> 00:42:30,532 We think that you'll be okay, just don't be nosing around 719 00:42:30,632 --> 00:42:33,166 where you don't have any business 720 00:42:33,266 --> 00:42:36,666 and get hold of a booby trap or something. 721 00:42:36,766 --> 00:42:40,833 This is about the end of this tape, so goodbye for now. 722 00:42:49,932 --> 00:42:53,733 HOLMES (on tape): We burned down a whole lot of hooches today 723 00:42:53,833 --> 00:42:57,000 of these people who don't cooperate with us, you know. 724 00:42:57,099 --> 00:42:58,766 Yeah, I don't I don't really understand it 725 00:42:58,865 --> 00:43:04,099 because if, if they are, you know, not VC, 726 00:43:04,199 --> 00:43:07,233 and we do that to them, you know, treat them bad, 727 00:43:07,333 --> 00:43:09,300 then they're gonna turn VC. 728 00:43:09,400 --> 00:43:10,932 The Army does everything backward. 729 00:43:17,500 --> 00:43:21,632 NARRATOR: One morning that fall, several APCs from F Troop 730 00:43:21,733 --> 00:43:24,699 moved cautiously up Highway One toward Danang. 731 00:43:24,800 --> 00:43:29,199 Michael Holmes rode in the second vehicle. 732 00:43:29,300 --> 00:43:33,000 (explosion) 733 00:43:37,965 --> 00:43:42,699 His APC hit a 300-pound bomb buried beneath the road. 734 00:43:42,800 --> 00:43:46,099 Three of his friends died instantly. 735 00:43:46,199 --> 00:43:48,532 Holmes was thrown clear 736 00:43:48,632 --> 00:43:52,932 and woke up five hours later in the hospital. 737 00:43:56,065 --> 00:43:58,132 HOLMES (on tape): Hello, Mom, Pop. 738 00:43:58,233 --> 00:43:59,500 This is me. 739 00:43:59,599 --> 00:44:01,465 Up to this point I didn't know 740 00:44:01,565 --> 00:44:04,833 if there was really a war going on over here. 741 00:44:04,932 --> 00:44:08,733 I just thought maybe they was playing a game or something. 742 00:44:08,833 --> 00:44:12,365 But I could've reached out and touched two of those people. 743 00:44:12,465 --> 00:44:14,500 I knew them real good. 744 00:44:14,599 --> 00:44:16,099 And please don't worry about me getting hurt 745 00:44:16,199 --> 00:44:19,266 because I'm not hurt all that bad. 746 00:44:19,365 --> 00:44:22,666 Two more Purple Hearts and I'm out of the field, 747 00:44:22,766 --> 00:44:26,532 and I think maybe I get to get out of the country altogether. 748 00:44:31,965 --> 00:44:37,333 NARRATOR: Six months later, Michael Holmes was on patrol, walking point, 749 00:44:37,432 --> 00:44:41,599 when he was killed by a North Vietnamese soldier. 750 00:44:50,032 --> 00:44:52,099 LIZ TROTTA: This is Long An province. 751 00:44:52,199 --> 00:44:55,532 Since 1962, it has been an important testing ground 752 00:44:55,632 --> 00:44:57,733 for the pacification program. 753 00:44:57,833 --> 00:45:02,632 Amidst the flat rice fields and coconut trees lies Loc Tien Mot. 754 00:45:02,733 --> 00:45:06,300 The hamlet chief says only more troops will make his people safe 755 00:45:06,400 --> 00:45:08,099 from the Viet Cong. 756 00:45:08,199 --> 00:45:09,465 During the night, he adds, 757 00:45:09,565 --> 00:45:12,699 the guerrillas go from house to house collecting taxes. 758 00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:16,632 The government may have left its traces of pacification. 759 00:45:16,733 --> 00:45:18,632 The Viet Cong have not left. 760 00:45:18,733 --> 00:45:21,865 Liz Trotta, NBC News, South Vietnam. 761 00:45:23,500 --> 00:45:26,166 NARRATOR: Since the Viet Cong had been so badly weakened 762 00:45:26,266 --> 00:45:29,800 in the Tet Offensive and the two offensives that followed it, 763 00:45:29,900 --> 00:45:31,666 General Abrams believed 764 00:45:31,766 --> 00:45:34,365 that hundreds of thousands of ARVN troops 765 00:45:34,465 --> 00:45:37,166 could now be freed to secure the countryside 766 00:45:37,266 --> 00:45:40,132 and win support for the government in Saigon. 767 00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:44,965 But permanent security was not possible 768 00:45:45,065 --> 00:45:48,300 unless the Viet Cong political infrastructure-- 769 00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:51,199 the tax collectors and village chiefs, 770 00:45:51,300 --> 00:45:54,132 runners and spies and sympathizers-- 771 00:45:54,233 --> 00:45:59,065 were killed, captured, or persuaded to defect. 772 00:45:59,166 --> 00:46:05,333 To do that, the CIA had created the Phoenix Program. 773 00:46:05,432 --> 00:46:08,400 RICHARD THRELKELD: The villagers of Thuy Xuan have been assembled 774 00:46:08,500 --> 00:46:10,199 in the village schoolyard, 775 00:46:10,300 --> 00:46:13,699 where teams of government interrogators are trying 776 00:46:13,800 --> 00:46:16,333 to pick out from among them the members of the Viet Cong 777 00:46:16,432 --> 00:46:18,233 who live here. 778 00:46:18,333 --> 00:46:21,599 This sort of Phoenix exercise is a weekly event 779 00:46:21,699 --> 00:46:24,565 in districts throughout South Vietnam. 780 00:46:27,099 --> 00:46:28,932 NARRATOR: After recovering from his wounds, 781 00:46:29,032 --> 00:46:32,965 Lieutenant Vincent Okamoto became an intelligence officer 782 00:46:33,065 --> 00:46:36,266 attached to the program. 783 00:46:36,365 --> 00:46:37,666 The Phoenix Program was premised on the fact 784 00:46:37,766 --> 00:46:39,900 that the North Vietnamese coming down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, 785 00:46:40,000 --> 00:46:41,532 when they went into South Vietnam, 786 00:46:41,632 --> 00:46:43,099 they were strangers, just like the Americans. 787 00:46:43,199 --> 00:46:46,733 They didn't know the terrain, they didn't know the people. 788 00:46:46,833 --> 00:46:50,166 So in order for them to function operationally, 789 00:46:50,266 --> 00:46:52,500 they needed the Viet Cong infrastructure. 790 00:46:52,599 --> 00:46:56,932 And so the project was to eliminate those guys. 791 00:46:57,032 --> 00:46:59,666 And I think it made a great deal of sense. 792 00:47:01,666 --> 00:47:04,865 STUART HERRINGTON: The communists thought Phoenix was very effective. 793 00:47:04,965 --> 00:47:07,465 They saw it as a significant threat 794 00:47:07,565 --> 00:47:09,865 to the viability of the revolution 795 00:47:09,965 --> 00:47:14,432 because to the extent that you could take a sharp pointed knife 796 00:47:14,532 --> 00:47:16,233 and carve out the Viet Cong, 797 00:47:16,333 --> 00:47:18,532 the shadow Viet Cong, the shadow government, 798 00:47:18,632 --> 00:47:21,800 then their means of control over the civilian population 799 00:47:21,900 --> 00:47:23,965 in the South was dealt a death blow. 800 00:47:26,266 --> 00:47:29,233 NARRATOR: The pressure the Phoenix Program put on the Viet Cong 801 00:47:29,333 --> 00:47:33,532 caused dangerous signs of what one communist official described 802 00:47:33,632 --> 00:47:37,766 as "wavering" among his followers in the Mekong Delta-- 803 00:47:37,865 --> 00:47:41,565 depression, discouragement, and widespread drunkenness 804 00:47:41,666 --> 00:47:45,733 even among men going into battle. 805 00:47:47,199 --> 00:47:51,132 But Phoenix's targeting was only as good as the intelligence 806 00:47:51,233 --> 00:47:56,599 upon which it was based, and that varied widely. 807 00:47:56,699 --> 00:48:00,099 DAVID CULHANE: This film, made by a CBS stringer cameraman 808 00:48:00,199 --> 00:48:03,300 some weeks ago shows South Vietnamese forces 809 00:48:03,400 --> 00:48:04,699 interrogating an old man 810 00:48:04,800 --> 00:48:07,032 identified as a minor VC official. 811 00:48:09,333 --> 00:48:10,500 NARRATOR: In the Phoenix Program, 812 00:48:10,599 --> 00:48:14,666 Americans served in an advisory capacity; 813 00:48:14,766 --> 00:48:18,000 most of the day-to-day enforcement was left to 814 00:48:18,099 --> 00:48:21,500 the South Vietnamese Provincial Reconnaissance Units-- 815 00:48:21,599 --> 00:48:23,532 the PRUs-- 816 00:48:23,632 --> 00:48:25,965 who sometimes were more interested 817 00:48:26,065 --> 00:48:30,599 in settling old scores than in rooting out communists. 818 00:48:32,465 --> 00:48:35,532 OKAMOTO: It was scary because it was subject to abuse, 819 00:48:35,632 --> 00:48:38,900 and was abused. 820 00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:43,666 Again, the geniuses in Saigon would use their computers 821 00:48:43,766 --> 00:48:47,300 to come up with the blacklists. 822 00:48:49,300 --> 00:48:51,900 You get the list, and you check with other intelligence officers 823 00:48:52,000 --> 00:48:53,932 in the district. 824 00:48:54,032 --> 00:48:56,800 And you try to pool that information. 825 00:48:56,900 --> 00:48:58,932 Next night, or a couple nights later, 826 00:48:59,032 --> 00:49:01,565 a bunch of cowboys from the PRUs would go out there. 827 00:49:01,666 --> 00:49:05,266 And, you know, knock on the door, 828 00:49:05,365 --> 00:49:06,666 "April Fool, motherfucker!" 829 00:49:06,766 --> 00:49:07,733 And boom. 830 00:49:09,400 --> 00:49:11,000 There wasn't any real accountability. 831 00:49:14,266 --> 00:49:16,932 NARRATOR: Later, the director of the Phoenix Program 832 00:49:17,032 --> 00:49:20,500 admitted to Congress that no one knew how many 833 00:49:20,599 --> 00:49:25,199 of the more than 20,000 who had been killed were innocent. 834 00:49:27,333 --> 00:49:29,565 And although the program did succeed 835 00:49:29,666 --> 00:49:32,500 in degrading the Viet Cong infrastructure, 836 00:49:32,599 --> 00:49:35,266 the government of Nguyen Van Thieu remained 837 00:49:35,365 --> 00:49:37,365 as unpopular as ever. 838 00:49:40,266 --> 00:49:43,632 A poll taken in the Delta province of Long An 839 00:49:43,733 --> 00:49:48,065 would show 35% of the people ready to vote for Thieu, 840 00:49:48,166 --> 00:49:52,166 20% favoring the National Liberation Front, 841 00:49:52,266 --> 00:49:57,099 and 45% backing someone, anyone, 842 00:49:57,199 --> 00:49:59,599 opposed to both the Viet Cong 843 00:49:59,699 --> 00:50:03,565 and the American-backed regime in Saigon. 844 00:50:08,199 --> 00:50:09,733 MAN: In Vietnam there's a wound 845 00:50:09,833 --> 00:50:11,932 that does not cease its bleeding. 846 00:50:12,032 --> 00:50:17,565 I'm talking about the scream of death and the wound of war. 847 00:50:17,666 --> 00:50:19,632 We did not come to talk with you, Mr. Humphrey. 848 00:50:19,733 --> 00:50:21,565 We have come to arrest you. 849 00:50:21,666 --> 00:50:23,233 Now you've had equal time. 850 00:50:23,333 --> 00:50:24,166 Shut up! 851 00:50:24,266 --> 00:50:26,166 (mixture of boos and cheers) 852 00:50:26,266 --> 00:50:29,900 NARRATOR: Hubert Humphrey's presidential campaign was in trouble. 853 00:50:30,000 --> 00:50:33,400 Richard Nixon was comfortably ahead in the polls 854 00:50:33,500 --> 00:50:35,365 and refused to debate. 855 00:50:35,465 --> 00:50:38,032 "I've come to the conclusion 856 00:50:38,132 --> 00:50:40,099 that there's no way to win the war," 857 00:50:40,199 --> 00:50:43,699 he told three of his speechwriters in private. 858 00:50:43,800 --> 00:50:45,632 "But we have to say the opposite, 859 00:50:45,733 --> 00:50:48,833 just to keep some bargaining leverage." 860 00:50:48,932 --> 00:50:53,233 Compounding Humphrey's problem was a third-party candidate, 861 00:50:53,333 --> 00:50:54,733 George Wallace, 862 00:50:54,833 --> 00:50:57,900 the segregationist former governor of Alabama. 863 00:50:58,000 --> 00:51:01,400 He was sure to peel away some white voters 864 00:51:01,500 --> 00:51:04,833 who normally voted Democratic. 865 00:51:04,932 --> 00:51:09,000 Humphrey had confided his doubts about the war to Johnson 866 00:51:09,099 --> 00:51:13,300 early on, but had always remained stubbornly loyal to him 867 00:51:13,400 --> 00:51:14,666 in public. 868 00:51:14,766 --> 00:51:18,565 Now his advisors told him that if he wanted to win 869 00:51:18,666 --> 00:51:20,865 he had to break with the president 870 00:51:20,965 --> 00:51:24,632 and make a bold gesture toward ending the war. 871 00:51:26,465 --> 00:51:29,565 On September 30, he called for a total halt 872 00:51:29,666 --> 00:51:32,400 to the bombing of North Vietnam. 873 00:51:32,500 --> 00:51:34,932 HUMPHREY: I would stop the bombing of the North 874 00:51:35,032 --> 00:51:38,333 as an acceptable risk for peace 875 00:51:38,432 --> 00:51:43,032 because I believe it could lead to success in the negotiations 876 00:51:43,132 --> 00:51:44,965 and thereby shorten the war. 877 00:51:45,065 --> 00:51:49,000 This would be the best protection for our troops. 878 00:51:49,099 --> 00:51:52,432 NARRATOR: Johnson felt betrayed and refused to speak 879 00:51:52,532 --> 00:51:54,733 to his own vice president for a time. 880 00:51:56,065 --> 00:51:59,833 But on October 31, just five days before the election, 881 00:51:59,932 --> 00:52:03,500 the president himself made a surprise announcement. 882 00:52:05,632 --> 00:52:09,766 He was stopping all bombing of North Vietnam. 883 00:52:09,865 --> 00:52:13,465 There had been real progress in Paris, he said. 884 00:52:13,565 --> 00:52:17,766 Hanoi had agreed for the first time to talk with Saigon, 885 00:52:17,865 --> 00:52:22,500 and the United States had agreed to include the Viet Cong. 886 00:52:22,599 --> 00:52:28,166 It suddenly looked as if peace were possible. 887 00:52:28,266 --> 00:52:30,032 Humphrey was jubilant. 888 00:52:30,132 --> 00:52:32,865 His poll numbers rose overnight. 889 00:52:32,965 --> 00:52:37,333 He was confident he would now be able to overtake Nixon. 890 00:52:37,432 --> 00:52:40,800 But then, on November 2, 891 00:52:40,900 --> 00:52:44,666 with just three days to go until Americans went to the polls, 892 00:52:44,766 --> 00:52:47,599 President Thieu suddenly announced 893 00:52:47,699 --> 00:52:50,865 that the South Vietnamese government would not attend 894 00:52:50,965 --> 00:52:53,233 the proposed talks after all. 895 00:52:55,065 --> 00:52:57,632 A representative of the Nixon campaign 896 00:52:57,733 --> 00:53:01,733 at the candidate's personal direction had secretly contacted 897 00:53:01,833 --> 00:53:03,300 the Saigon government 898 00:53:03,400 --> 00:53:06,233 urging Thieu to stay away from the talks, 899 00:53:06,333 --> 00:53:09,032 promising that once Nixon was elected, 900 00:53:09,132 --> 00:53:13,333 he would drive a harder bargain with Hanoi than Humphrey would. 901 00:53:13,432 --> 00:53:18,800 Thanks to a CIA bug planted in Thieu's Saigon office 902 00:53:18,900 --> 00:53:22,465 and an FBI wiretap on the South Vietnamese embassy 903 00:53:22,565 --> 00:53:26,432 in Washington, Johnson got wind of what had happened 904 00:53:26,532 --> 00:53:28,833 and called his friend Everett Dirksen, 905 00:53:28,932 --> 00:53:31,333 the Republican Senate minority leader, 906 00:53:31,432 --> 00:53:36,132 to warn him that the Nixon people were committing treason. 907 00:53:36,233 --> 00:53:38,032 LYNDON JOHNSON: I'm reading their hand, Everett. 908 00:53:38,132 --> 00:53:40,000 I don't want to get this in the campaign. 909 00:53:40,099 --> 00:53:41,400 DIRKSEN: That's right. 910 00:53:41,500 --> 00:53:42,666 And they oughtn't to be doing this. 911 00:53:42,766 --> 00:53:43,833 This is treason. I know. 912 00:53:43,932 --> 00:53:46,032 And I think it would shock America 913 00:53:46,132 --> 00:53:50,065 if a principal candidate was playing with a source like this 914 00:53:50,166 --> 00:53:51,565 on a matter this important. 915 00:53:51,666 --> 00:53:52,800 Yeah. 916 00:53:52,900 --> 00:53:54,132 I know this-- 917 00:53:54,233 --> 00:53:56,865 that they're contacting a foreign power 918 00:53:56,965 --> 00:53:58,199 in the middle of a war. 919 00:53:58,300 --> 00:53:59,333 That's a mistake. 920 00:53:59,432 --> 00:54:00,733 And it's a damn bad mistake. 921 00:54:03,333 --> 00:54:04,132 RICHARD NIXON: Mr. President? 922 00:54:04,233 --> 00:54:05,132 JOHNSON: Yes. 923 00:54:05,233 --> 00:54:06,932 This is Dick Nixon. Yes, Dick. 924 00:54:07,032 --> 00:54:08,365 I just went on Meet the Press 925 00:54:08,465 --> 00:54:13,800 and said that I had given you my personal assurance 926 00:54:13,900 --> 00:54:16,965 that I would do everything possible to cooperate 927 00:54:17,065 --> 00:54:20,000 both before the election and if elected, after the election. 928 00:54:20,099 --> 00:54:21,500 I just wanted you to know 929 00:54:21,599 --> 00:54:24,800 that I feel very, very strongly about this 930 00:54:24,900 --> 00:54:28,400 and any rumblings around 931 00:54:28,500 --> 00:54:32,199 about somebody trying to sabotage 932 00:54:32,300 --> 00:54:33,800 the Saigon government's attitude 933 00:54:33,900 --> 00:54:35,199 certainly has no... 934 00:54:35,300 --> 00:54:39,599 absolutely no credibility as far as I am concerned. 935 00:54:39,699 --> 00:54:40,965 That's, that's... 936 00:54:41,065 --> 00:54:42,532 I'm very happy to hear that, Dick, 937 00:54:42,632 --> 00:54:45,500 because that is taking place. 938 00:54:45,599 --> 00:54:49,333 My God, I would never do anything to encourage Saigon 939 00:54:49,432 --> 00:54:50,932 not to come to the table because basically, 940 00:54:51,032 --> 00:54:53,300 that was what you got. 941 00:54:53,400 --> 00:54:54,532 Well, that's good, Dick. 942 00:54:54,632 --> 00:54:56,599 We've got to get this goddamned war off the plate, 943 00:54:56,699 --> 00:54:59,000 the quicker the better, and the hell with the political credit. 944 00:54:59,099 --> 00:55:00,099 Believe me. 945 00:55:00,199 --> 00:55:01,166 Thank you, Dick. 946 00:55:05,400 --> 00:55:08,900 NARRATOR: Nixon was lying and Johnson knew it. 947 00:55:09,000 --> 00:55:10,900 But to go public with the information, 948 00:55:11,000 --> 00:55:13,666 the president would have to reveal the methods 949 00:55:13,766 --> 00:55:14,900 by which he had learned 950 00:55:15,000 --> 00:55:18,199 of the Republican candidate's duplicity. 951 00:55:18,300 --> 00:55:20,766 He was unwilling to do so. 952 00:55:20,865 --> 00:55:24,400 Nixon's secret was safe. 953 00:55:24,500 --> 00:55:26,632 The American public was never told 954 00:55:26,733 --> 00:55:31,000 that the regime for which 35,000 Americans had died 955 00:55:31,099 --> 00:55:33,365 had been willing to boycott peace talks 956 00:55:33,465 --> 00:55:37,032 to help elect Richard Nixon or that he had been willing 957 00:55:37,132 --> 00:55:42,733 to delay an end to the bloodshed in order to get elected. 958 00:55:42,833 --> 00:55:47,266 REPORTER: At 10:45 this morning, Eastern Standard Time... 959 00:55:47,365 --> 00:55:52,565 NARRATOR: On Election Day, Richard Milhous Nixon won the presidency 960 00:55:52,666 --> 00:55:56,099 with 43.4 percent of the vote. 961 00:55:56,199 --> 00:56:00,300 Hubert Humphrey received 42.7 percent. 962 00:56:04,599 --> 00:56:07,733 The Nixon campaign's secret maneuvering may have helped him 963 00:56:07,833 --> 00:56:11,266 win the election, but the president-elect's fear 964 00:56:11,365 --> 00:56:14,532 that that maneuvering might someday be exposed 965 00:56:14,632 --> 00:56:17,000 would be part of his undoing. 966 00:56:20,666 --> 00:56:23,266 Thieu waited several weeks after the election 967 00:56:23,365 --> 00:56:28,532 before agreeing to send a delegation to Paris. 968 00:56:28,632 --> 00:56:33,465 There, everything stalled over the seating arrangements. 969 00:56:33,565 --> 00:56:38,400 The North Vietnamese had insisted on a square table, 970 00:56:38,500 --> 00:56:41,932 with separate sides for all four parties to the talks-- 971 00:56:42,032 --> 00:56:46,632 Hanoi, the Viet Cong, Saigon, and the United States. 972 00:56:46,733 --> 00:56:51,965 Saigon refused to take part unless Hanoi and the Viet Cong 973 00:56:52,065 --> 00:56:54,432 sat on the same side of the table. 974 00:56:54,532 --> 00:56:58,465 The standoff went on for ten weeks. 975 00:57:01,432 --> 00:57:05,400 It was the Soviets who finally came up with a solution: 976 00:57:05,500 --> 00:57:07,699 a round table. 977 00:57:10,000 --> 00:57:12,932 (gunfire) 978 00:57:13,032 --> 00:57:15,532 RADIO OPERATOR: Type of injury is urgent, shrapnel wounds. 979 00:57:15,632 --> 00:57:16,965 (gunfire) 980 00:57:17,065 --> 00:57:18,932 The area is insecure. 981 00:57:22,532 --> 00:57:23,833 MEDIC: Keep your head down. 982 00:57:26,032 --> 00:57:27,900 RADIO OPERATOR: Got some fire. 983 00:57:30,865 --> 00:57:34,266 KARL MARLANTES: You have these 19-year-old kids with these huge hearts. 984 00:57:34,365 --> 00:57:37,432 They will do what you ask them. 985 00:57:37,532 --> 00:57:41,833 The issue is are you asking them to do something worthwhile? 986 00:57:41,932 --> 00:57:43,065 That's up to the adults. 987 00:57:43,166 --> 00:57:45,500 And that's where the failure comes. 988 00:57:45,599 --> 00:57:48,166 The failure isn't the kids saying, "I'm not gonna do this." 989 00:57:48,266 --> 00:57:50,699 Because that's not the way they are built. 990 00:57:50,800 --> 00:57:53,032 19-year-olds don't know to take a raincoat on 991 00:57:53,132 --> 00:57:54,699 when it's raining, all right? 992 00:57:54,800 --> 00:57:57,099 That's-that's why they're so good at being warriors. 993 00:57:57,199 --> 00:57:58,699 They'll do it. 994 00:57:58,800 --> 00:58:00,199 They won't even ask you a question. 995 00:58:01,599 --> 00:58:04,065 "All right, we'll do it." 996 00:58:04,166 --> 00:58:06,900 The responsibility is on the grownups to make sure 997 00:58:07,000 --> 00:58:08,532 they're not being wasted 998 00:58:08,632 --> 00:58:12,632 because they'll do what they're told, and they'll do it well. 999 00:58:15,532 --> 00:58:19,333 NARRATOR: Karl Marlantes was born in Astoria, Oregon, 1000 00:58:19,432 --> 00:58:22,666 the son of a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge. 1001 00:58:22,766 --> 00:58:25,699 He had joined the Marine Reserves the summer before 1002 00:58:25,800 --> 00:58:27,733 his freshman year at Yale, 1003 00:58:27,833 --> 00:58:32,032 eager to prove himself and defend his country. 1004 00:58:32,132 --> 00:58:34,000 When he became a Rhodes scholar, 1005 00:58:34,099 --> 00:58:37,632 the Marines allowed him to defer going on active duty, 1006 00:58:37,733 --> 00:58:41,432 and instead of serving in Vietnam, he went to Oxford 1007 00:58:41,532 --> 00:58:45,833 in the fall of 1967. 1008 00:58:45,932 --> 00:58:48,000 A few months after he got there, 1009 00:58:48,099 --> 00:58:51,733 he wrote to his parents back home. 1010 00:58:51,833 --> 00:58:53,465 MARLANTES: "It is with a little apprehension 1011 00:58:53,565 --> 00:58:56,865 "that I write this letter. 1012 00:58:56,965 --> 00:58:59,000 "I have given up my scholarship, 1013 00:58:59,099 --> 00:59:03,465 "and I will be on active duty as of May 3. 1014 00:59:03,565 --> 00:59:07,000 "As you know, I feel the U.S. is absolutely wrong 1015 00:59:07,099 --> 00:59:08,965 "to be in the war. 1016 00:59:09,065 --> 00:59:11,632 "A lot of people are dying for no good reason. 1017 00:59:11,733 --> 00:59:16,266 "I can only feel an increasing rage and frustration. 1018 00:59:16,365 --> 00:59:18,766 And a complete feeling of helplessness." 1019 00:59:20,432 --> 00:59:26,000 "I have, in effect, been hiding, and I'll not do it anymore. 1020 00:59:26,099 --> 00:59:31,032 "I guess I'm about to do a highly immoral thing. 1021 00:59:31,132 --> 00:59:32,199 "I will be taking part 1022 00:59:32,300 --> 00:59:34,599 "in one of the greatest crimes of our century, 1023 00:59:34,699 --> 00:59:39,532 "and I will be doing so out of frustration, bitterness, 1024 00:59:39,632 --> 00:59:43,199 "and a sense of the absurd that I have only come to appreciate 1025 00:59:43,300 --> 00:59:46,000 "in its entirety in the past year. 1026 00:59:46,099 --> 00:59:48,900 From now on my logic will be changed." 1027 00:59:50,800 --> 00:59:52,733 "I can do something. 1028 00:59:52,833 --> 00:59:55,500 "That is, I can do my very best to get 40 kids 1029 00:59:55,599 --> 00:59:57,932 "out of Vietnam alive, 1030 00:59:58,032 --> 01:00:01,432 "and if I have to turn into an evil machine to do it, 1031 01:00:01,532 --> 01:00:03,400 then by God I will." 1032 01:00:06,465 --> 01:00:10,432 It was my friends, guys that I trained with. 1033 01:00:10,532 --> 01:00:15,300 I felt like I was going to let the side down. 1034 01:00:15,400 --> 01:00:18,365 That by not joining in with them and sharing the burden 1035 01:00:18,465 --> 01:00:21,532 that I wouldn't be a decent person. 1036 01:00:21,632 --> 01:00:24,532 It's a mixed bag because I went over there and killed people 1037 01:00:24,632 --> 01:00:26,432 for, you know... is that why I did that? 1038 01:00:28,465 --> 01:00:30,099 O'BRIEN: Do you go off and kill people 1039 01:00:30,199 --> 01:00:32,166 if you're not pretty sure it's right? 1040 01:00:32,266 --> 01:00:35,766 And if your nation isn't pretty sure it's right? 1041 01:00:35,865 --> 01:00:40,000 If there isn't some consensus, do you do that? 1042 01:00:42,833 --> 01:00:44,333 I was at Fort Lewis, Washington, 1043 01:00:44,432 --> 01:00:48,365 and Canada was, what, a 90-minute bus ride away. 1044 01:00:48,465 --> 01:00:50,733 I wrote my mom and dad and asked for money. 1045 01:00:50,833 --> 01:00:53,900 I asked for my passport. 1046 01:00:54,000 --> 01:00:56,432 And they sent them to me with, again, no questions. 1047 01:00:56,532 --> 01:00:58,132 Like, "What do you want the passport for?" 1048 01:00:58,233 --> 01:00:59,833 They just sent it. 1049 01:00:59,932 --> 01:01:01,432 And I kept all this stuff stashed, 1050 01:01:01,532 --> 01:01:04,300 including civilian clothes stashed in my footlocker, 1051 01:01:04,400 --> 01:01:06,099 thinking maybe I'll... maybe I'll do it. 1052 01:01:06,199 --> 01:01:08,000 ("Bookends Theme" by Simon and Garfunkel playing) 1053 01:01:08,099 --> 01:01:10,733 It was this kind of "maybe" thing going on 1054 01:01:10,833 --> 01:01:14,365 all throughout this training as Vietnam got closer 1055 01:01:14,465 --> 01:01:16,932 and closer and closer. 1056 01:01:17,032 --> 01:01:20,266 What prevented me from doing it? 1057 01:01:20,365 --> 01:01:23,699 I think it was pretty simple and stupid. 1058 01:01:23,800 --> 01:01:27,333 It was a fear of embarrassment, 1059 01:01:27,432 --> 01:01:31,865 a fear of ridicule and humiliation. 1060 01:01:33,532 --> 01:01:35,900 What my girlfriend would have thought of me 1061 01:01:36,000 --> 01:01:39,500 and the people in the Gobbler Cafe in downtown Worthington. 1062 01:01:41,099 --> 01:01:43,199 The Kiwanis boys and the country club boys 1063 01:01:43,300 --> 01:01:45,632 and that small town I grew up in, 1064 01:01:45,733 --> 01:01:48,099 the things they'd say about me. 1065 01:01:48,199 --> 01:01:54,166 "What a coward and what a sissy for going to Canada." 1066 01:01:54,266 --> 01:01:57,099 SIMON AND GARFUNKEL: ♪ It was a time of innocence 1067 01:01:57,199 --> 01:01:58,965 O'BRIEN: And I would imagine my mom and dad 1068 01:01:59,065 --> 01:02:02,333 overhearing something like that. 1069 01:02:02,432 --> 01:02:05,800 SIMON AND GARFUNKEL: ♪ Long ago it must be 1070 01:02:05,900 --> 01:02:09,400 O'BRIEN: I couldn't summon the courage to say no 1071 01:02:09,500 --> 01:02:19,065 to those nameless, faceless people who really, in essence, 1072 01:02:19,166 --> 01:02:23,132 this was the United States of America. 1073 01:02:23,233 --> 01:02:26,833 And I couldn't say no to them. 1074 01:02:26,932 --> 01:02:32,733 And I had to live with it now for, you know, 40 years. 1075 01:02:32,833 --> 01:02:38,532 That's a long time to live with a failure of conscience 1076 01:02:38,632 --> 01:02:43,632 and a failure of nerve. 1077 01:02:43,733 --> 01:02:47,465 And the nightmare of Vietnam for me is not the bombs 1078 01:02:47,565 --> 01:02:48,900 and the bullets. 1079 01:02:57,666 --> 01:03:01,500 (voice breaking): It's that failure of nerve 1080 01:03:01,599 --> 01:03:03,199 that I so regret. 1081 01:03:14,333 --> 01:03:19,233 HAL KUSHNER: In the fall of 1968 was probably the toughest time we had. 1082 01:03:22,333 --> 01:03:29,333 Our daily life was a continuing struggle for survival. 1083 01:03:29,432 --> 01:03:36,800 Our food ration was three cups of rice per day. 1084 01:03:38,166 --> 01:03:42,300 We slept on a large bamboo pallet. 1085 01:03:42,400 --> 01:03:46,365 Sometimes there were ten or 12 people on one pallet. 1086 01:03:46,465 --> 01:03:48,766 And we were sick. 1087 01:03:48,865 --> 01:03:50,932 We were very sick. 1088 01:03:51,032 --> 01:03:55,465 Four people died within... 1089 01:03:55,565 --> 01:03:57,099 a month. 1090 01:03:57,199 --> 01:03:59,965 And then two more died very shortly after that. 1091 01:04:02,666 --> 01:04:05,065 NARRATOR: Thirteen Americans would die 1092 01:04:05,166 --> 01:04:08,965 during Captain Hal Kushner's time in jungle prison camps 1093 01:04:09,065 --> 01:04:10,632 in South Vietnam. 1094 01:04:12,000 --> 01:04:14,932 He was a doctor but had no medications, 1095 01:04:15,032 --> 01:04:17,632 no antibiotics or saline solution 1096 01:04:17,733 --> 01:04:20,032 with which to treat his comrades. 1097 01:04:20,132 --> 01:04:24,565 All he could do was bury each in a bamboo coffin 1098 01:04:24,666 --> 01:04:28,266 and make sure the spot was marked with a heap of stones 1099 01:04:28,365 --> 01:04:31,032 daubed with Mercurochrome. 1100 01:04:33,166 --> 01:04:35,965 KUSHNER: We had nothing to eat. 1101 01:04:36,065 --> 01:04:39,833 And I thought that I was just going insane. 1102 01:04:39,932 --> 01:04:43,199 So we were sitting around and with this little fire. 1103 01:04:43,300 --> 01:04:45,300 And we saw the camp commander's cat, 1104 01:04:45,400 --> 01:04:46,965 who had free rein of the camp. 1105 01:04:47,065 --> 01:04:48,400 And he came down to our area. 1106 01:04:48,500 --> 01:04:50,532 And we were starving to death. 1107 01:04:50,632 --> 01:04:54,000 So someone suggested, "Let's eat the cat." 1108 01:04:56,300 --> 01:04:57,400 So we killed the cat. 1109 01:04:59,000 --> 01:05:02,432 And we cut the head off and we cut the paws off. 1110 01:05:02,532 --> 01:05:05,833 And we had this little carcass of about two pounds. 1111 01:05:05,932 --> 01:05:10,000 And one of the guards came down, and we told him it was a weasel, 1112 01:05:10,099 --> 01:05:12,599 and we threw a rock at it and killed it. 1113 01:05:12,699 --> 01:05:14,333 And then he looked around 1114 01:05:14,432 --> 01:05:17,766 and someone had neglected to bury one of the paws. 1115 01:05:17,865 --> 01:05:19,365 And he saw the paw. 1116 01:05:19,465 --> 01:05:23,065 And he knew instantly that it was the camp commander's cat. 1117 01:05:23,166 --> 01:05:25,632 And things got very serious. 1118 01:05:27,733 --> 01:05:30,833 And they lined us up and they said, "Who did this?" 1119 01:05:30,932 --> 01:05:32,199 Nobody said anything. 1120 01:05:32,300 --> 01:05:34,132 I thought they were going to kill us all. 1121 01:05:34,233 --> 01:05:36,032 Just execute us. 1122 01:05:36,132 --> 01:05:41,266 And one of the people who was a ringleader in this 1123 01:05:41,365 --> 01:05:43,565 said he did it. 1124 01:05:43,666 --> 01:05:47,233 And I said that I did it also. 1125 01:05:47,333 --> 01:05:49,465 And we all said we did it. 1126 01:05:49,565 --> 01:05:51,432 "I am Spartacus," you know? 1127 01:05:51,532 --> 01:05:53,199 It was that. 1128 01:05:53,300 --> 01:05:57,432 So they called that person and me out. 1129 01:05:57,532 --> 01:06:01,099 And the guard kicked him and beat him to the ground, 1130 01:06:01,199 --> 01:06:03,266 and just beat him unmercifully. 1131 01:06:04,733 --> 01:06:08,099 And they hit me in the face with fists and didn't beat me 1132 01:06:08,199 --> 01:06:10,065 as badly as they beat him. 1133 01:06:10,166 --> 01:06:14,099 And then tied me with commo wire very tightly to a hooch 1134 01:06:14,199 --> 01:06:17,733 and left me for a day. 1135 01:06:17,833 --> 01:06:21,632 And with the carcass of the cat draped around my neck. 1136 01:06:21,733 --> 01:06:23,266 And I was so crazy I thought, 1137 01:06:23,365 --> 01:06:25,365 "Maybe they're going to let me eat this cat." 1138 01:06:25,465 --> 01:06:28,000 But I had to bury it. 1139 01:06:28,099 --> 01:06:33,166 So, the fellow that they beat very badly died two weeks later. 1140 01:06:34,632 --> 01:06:38,500 But to me the tragedy of it was we didn't get the cat. 1141 01:06:44,365 --> 01:06:46,666 CHARLES COLLINGWOOD: For the capital of a nation at war, 1142 01:06:46,766 --> 01:06:50,365 Saigon abounds with a phenomenal number of young men 1143 01:06:50,465 --> 01:06:53,465 of draft age in sharp, civilian clothes. 1144 01:06:53,565 --> 01:06:56,900 Saigon cowboys they're called. 1145 01:06:57,000 --> 01:07:00,532 It's a war profiteer's economy, fanned by the forced draft 1146 01:07:00,632 --> 01:07:02,000 of American money. 1147 01:07:02,099 --> 01:07:03,666 They count it a good year in Saigon 1148 01:07:03,766 --> 01:07:06,099 when the prices only go up by 25%. 1149 01:07:10,199 --> 01:07:11,865 NARRATOR: Years of American presence, 1150 01:07:11,965 --> 01:07:16,233 and the tens of billions of U.S. dollars that came with it, 1151 01:07:16,333 --> 01:07:18,865 had transformed much of South Vietnam, 1152 01:07:18,965 --> 01:07:22,632 creating a false economy that was utterly dependent 1153 01:07:22,733 --> 01:07:26,300 on that presence becoming perpetual. 1154 01:07:26,400 --> 01:07:29,632 GEORGE LEWIS: Since the U.S. began its big buildup in the mid-'60s, 1155 01:07:29,733 --> 01:07:32,199 millions of dollars worth of goods have entered the country 1156 01:07:32,300 --> 01:07:33,865 each month. 1157 01:07:33,965 --> 01:07:36,900 Some economists say ten percent or more of the cargo 1158 01:07:37,000 --> 01:07:39,599 is diverted into black market channels. 1159 01:07:43,365 --> 01:07:45,900 NARRATOR: With so much money flowing into the country, 1160 01:07:46,000 --> 01:07:49,266 corruption and crime inevitably grew. 1161 01:07:51,865 --> 01:07:54,199 Government officials were on the take. 1162 01:07:54,300 --> 01:07:57,166 So were many ARVN officers. 1163 01:07:57,266 --> 01:08:00,733 Policemen could not be trusted. 1164 01:08:03,900 --> 01:08:07,932 PHAN QUANG TUE: Who benefit from the financial aspect of the war? 1165 01:08:09,065 --> 01:08:10,599 Generals. 1166 01:08:10,699 --> 01:08:12,900 Don't deny that. 1167 01:08:13,000 --> 01:08:16,399 Then they get the money, then they become richer. 1168 01:08:16,500 --> 01:08:21,765 We have a term, and I call it, they were war profiteers, 1169 01:08:21,865 --> 01:08:26,065 from Thieu and Ky down to every echelon. 1170 01:08:26,166 --> 01:08:28,632 HERRINGTON: The Vietnamese had a saying: 1171 01:08:28,733 --> 01:08:31,832 a house leaks from the roof on down. 1172 01:08:31,932 --> 01:08:34,865 (saying phrase in Vietnamese) 1173 01:08:36,800 --> 01:08:41,600 And that was, of course, their way to elliptically refer 1174 01:08:41,699 --> 01:08:45,300 to the ever-present, nagging problem of corruption. 1175 01:08:45,399 --> 01:08:50,800 JOE GALLOWAY: They were stealing from us and selling to anybody. 1176 01:08:50,899 --> 01:08:52,565 Two-man helicopter, you want one of those? 1177 01:08:52,666 --> 01:08:55,600 They got it in a box in the back. 1178 01:08:55,699 --> 01:08:59,966 Probably get it for 12,000 bucks if you negotiated strongly. 1179 01:09:01,432 --> 01:09:05,132 The corruption was endemic. 1180 01:09:05,233 --> 01:09:08,365 And we tolerated it. 1181 01:09:08,466 --> 01:09:12,899 NARRATOR: Tons of American goods piled up on Saigon's docks. 1182 01:09:13,000 --> 01:09:16,565 Some GIs took advantage, too. 1183 01:09:16,666 --> 01:09:20,533 U.S. products flowed out the back doors of PXs. 1184 01:09:20,632 --> 01:09:23,666 In just one year, 1185 01:09:23,765 --> 01:09:30,065 the black market cost the U.S. military $2 billion. 1186 01:09:30,166 --> 01:09:32,966 COLLINGWOOD: The impact of the war has disrupted the ancient patterns 1187 01:09:33,065 --> 01:09:35,065 of Vietnamese life. 1188 01:09:35,166 --> 01:09:38,166 The cities are crowded to the bursting point with people 1189 01:09:38,265 --> 01:09:41,100 uprooted from the land and the ancestral values 1190 01:09:41,199 --> 01:09:43,533 of a rural-oriented society 1191 01:09:43,632 --> 01:09:46,265 but who have found nothing to replace them. 1192 01:09:46,365 --> 01:09:49,632 NARRATOR: Before U.S. troops arrived, 1193 01:09:49,733 --> 01:09:53,765 eight out of ten South Vietnamese lived in villages. 1194 01:09:53,865 --> 01:09:57,199 By the end of the 1960s, 1195 01:09:57,300 --> 01:10:01,699 almost half would be crowded into urban areas. 1196 01:10:01,800 --> 01:10:05,832 Saigon's population tripled to three million. 1197 01:10:05,932 --> 01:10:10,233 Half the refugees had no permanent shelter. 1198 01:10:12,632 --> 01:10:15,332 Cholera and typhoid killed thousands. 1199 01:10:17,832 --> 01:10:21,600 Hungry children roamed the streets, scavenging, begging, 1200 01:10:21,699 --> 01:10:26,000 searching for jobs to do or pockets to pick. 1201 01:10:26,100 --> 01:10:30,666 Tens of thousands of young women left their village homes 1202 01:10:30,765 --> 01:10:35,865 and came to Saigon to become bar girls and prostitutes. 1203 01:10:41,632 --> 01:10:43,033 The communist government in Hanoi 1204 01:10:43,132 --> 01:10:45,233 tried to make the most of it, 1205 01:10:45,332 --> 01:10:49,899 accusing the United States and its puppet government in Saigon 1206 01:10:50,000 --> 01:10:53,132 of destroying Vietnamese culture in the South. 1207 01:10:56,800 --> 01:11:00,399 But the citizens of Saigon were far freer 1208 01:11:00,500 --> 01:11:02,065 than the North Vietnamese. 1209 01:11:02,166 --> 01:11:06,500 The South Vietnamese people could express their views, 1210 01:11:06,600 --> 01:11:08,065 for and against their government, 1211 01:11:08,166 --> 01:11:13,199 in the pages of hundreds of newspapers and magazines. 1212 01:11:13,300 --> 01:11:16,666 And they held demonstrations denouncing 1213 01:11:16,765 --> 01:11:20,765 the rampant corruption and demanding religious freedom 1214 01:11:20,865 --> 01:11:23,300 and better treatment for veterans. 1215 01:11:27,300 --> 01:11:30,699 For all of its problems, one man remembered, 1216 01:11:30,800 --> 01:11:35,265 Saigon was "filthy and free." 1217 01:11:35,365 --> 01:11:36,899 (car horn honking) 1218 01:11:43,166 --> 01:11:46,199 NGUYEN NGOC: 1219 01:12:17,033 --> 01:12:18,765 (gunfire) 1220 01:13:07,565 --> 01:13:10,533 NARRATOR: In the densely populated Mekong Delta, 1221 01:13:10,632 --> 01:13:15,365 the war in the countryside suddenly intensified. 1222 01:13:15,466 --> 01:13:17,733 General Abrams assigned the commander 1223 01:13:17,832 --> 01:13:22,132 of the 9th Infantry Division, General Julian J. Ewell, 1224 01:13:22,233 --> 01:13:25,033 the job of destroying the remaining Viet Cong 1225 01:13:25,132 --> 01:13:27,432 south of Saigon. 1226 01:13:27,533 --> 01:13:32,000 His operation was called Speedy Express. 1227 01:13:33,733 --> 01:13:38,365 "The hearts and minds approach can be overdone," Ewell said. 1228 01:13:38,466 --> 01:13:42,865 "In the Delta the only way to overcome VC control and terror 1229 01:13:42,966 --> 01:13:46,033 is by brute force." 1230 01:13:47,533 --> 01:13:50,666 Patrols would pursue the enemy around the clock. 1231 01:13:50,765 --> 01:13:54,166 The night sky was filled with helicopters, 1232 01:13:54,265 --> 01:13:56,832 some armed with instruments that could detect 1233 01:13:56,932 --> 01:13:58,932 traces of carbon and ammonia 1234 01:13:59,033 --> 01:14:01,899 that meant human beings were below, 1235 01:14:02,000 --> 01:14:05,199 though not which side they were on. 1236 01:14:05,300 --> 01:14:09,533 In areas designated "free-fire zones," 1237 01:14:09,632 --> 01:14:12,332 anyone out after curfew could be shot. 1238 01:14:14,332 --> 01:14:18,199 During the day, anyone seen running was targeted. 1239 01:14:20,699 --> 01:14:24,699 Colonel Robert Gard was one of Ewell's artillery commanders. 1240 01:14:24,800 --> 01:14:29,865 ROBERT GARD: If someone was told that anyone who runs away should be assumed 1241 01:14:29,966 --> 01:14:33,699 to be an enemy, I certainly would disagree with that. 1242 01:14:33,800 --> 01:14:35,600 That's totally improper. 1243 01:14:35,699 --> 01:14:39,332 People run away because they're afraid. 1244 01:14:39,432 --> 01:14:43,500 I've seen instances of farmers, 1245 01:14:43,600 --> 01:14:46,300 when you descend in a helicopter suddenly, 1246 01:14:46,399 --> 01:14:49,399 and they freeze, and they're frightened, and they run. 1247 01:14:49,500 --> 01:14:54,166 You can't just make a blanket judgment. 1248 01:14:54,265 --> 01:14:58,765 NARRATOR: General Ewell boasted of his unit's statistical record-- 1249 01:14:58,865 --> 01:15:04,466 10,899 Viet Cong killed in six months 1250 01:15:04,565 --> 01:15:07,765 with a loss of only 242 Americans, 1251 01:15:07,865 --> 01:15:13,466 an astonishing kill ratio of 45-to-1. 1252 01:15:16,000 --> 01:15:20,666 GARD: To say that we killed only enemy combatants, 1253 01:15:20,765 --> 01:15:24,365 and to talk about ratios of 40-to-1 1254 01:15:24,466 --> 01:15:27,565 simply defies my imagination. 1255 01:15:29,100 --> 01:15:32,399 NARRATOR: At Abrams' recommendation, Ewell was promoted, 1256 01:15:32,500 --> 01:15:36,832 but the Army Inspector General would eventually estimate 1257 01:15:36,932 --> 01:15:40,000 that more than half of the roughly 11,000 kills 1258 01:15:40,100 --> 01:15:42,432 claimed by the 9th Infantry 1259 01:15:42,533 --> 01:15:45,533 had been unarmed, innocent civilians. 1260 01:15:49,265 --> 01:15:52,166 No one was ever held accountable. 1261 01:15:56,966 --> 01:16:01,800 ("Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" by Bob Dylan playing) 1262 01:16:05,899 --> 01:16:11,233 ♪ It ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe ♪ 1263 01:16:11,332 --> 01:16:15,065 ♪ It don't matter, anyhow 1264 01:16:15,166 --> 01:16:20,233 ♪ And it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe ♪ 1265 01:16:20,332 --> 01:16:24,132 ♪ If you don't know by now 1266 01:16:24,233 --> 01:16:28,765 ♪ When your rooster crows at the break of dawn ♪ 1267 01:16:28,865 --> 01:16:33,666 ♪ Look out your window and I'll be gone ♪ 1268 01:16:33,765 --> 01:16:37,733 ♪ You're the reason I'm travelin' on ♪ 1269 01:16:37,832 --> 01:16:41,500 ♪ Don't think twice, it's all right. ♪ 1270 01:16:47,733 --> 01:16:52,733 CAROL CROCKER: I think moving away from one's family's ideologies 1271 01:16:52,832 --> 01:16:59,600 is a scary balance on a very tricky precipice 1272 01:16:59,699 --> 01:17:03,466 because they have been the focal point 1273 01:17:03,565 --> 01:17:04,966 of how we judge how we're doing. 1274 01:17:05,065 --> 01:17:09,733 And I was now trying to judge my decisions and my actions 1275 01:17:09,832 --> 01:17:13,932 on the basis of my own ideas and own thoughts. 1276 01:17:14,033 --> 01:17:17,199 NARRATOR: The war was already uncomfortably close 1277 01:17:17,300 --> 01:17:19,666 to Carol Crocker. 1278 01:17:19,765 --> 01:17:22,533 Her brother Mogie had volunteered to fight 1279 01:17:22,632 --> 01:17:27,500 and had been killed in Vietnam in 1966. 1280 01:17:27,600 --> 01:17:29,265 She was still grieving. 1281 01:17:31,533 --> 01:17:35,399 That fall, Carol had entered Goucher College in Baltimore, 1282 01:17:35,500 --> 01:17:40,399 an all-women's school with a long conservative tradition. 1283 01:17:40,500 --> 01:17:42,432 CAROL CROCKER: We dressed for dinner. 1284 01:17:42,533 --> 01:17:45,600 We had an 11:00 curfew. 1285 01:17:45,699 --> 01:17:51,033 Obviously no boys or men were allowed in the dorms. 1286 01:17:51,132 --> 01:17:53,100 That was the rule. 1287 01:17:53,199 --> 01:17:55,132 ("Piece of My Heart" by Big Brother and the Holding Company) 1288 01:17:55,233 --> 01:17:58,966 It could not have even been any later than the beginning 1289 01:17:59,065 --> 01:18:04,832 of the second semester that most of the rules that were in place 1290 01:18:04,932 --> 01:18:09,800 and had been in place for many, many years, no longer existed. 1291 01:18:09,899 --> 01:18:15,466 JANIS JOPLIN: ♪ Oh, come on, come on, come on, come on ♪ 1292 01:18:15,565 --> 01:18:17,033 ♪ And take it 1293 01:18:17,132 --> 01:18:18,300 ♪ Take another little piece... 1294 01:18:18,399 --> 01:18:19,399 CAROL CROCKER: The challenge 1295 01:18:19,500 --> 01:18:23,600 to campuses countrywide was 1296 01:18:23,699 --> 01:18:25,332 how do we maintain our student body 1297 01:18:25,432 --> 01:18:31,065 to behave in a civil manner, and teach them, 1298 01:18:31,166 --> 01:18:34,033 and not have them try to burn us down? 1299 01:18:34,132 --> 01:18:36,600 If that means not dressing for dinner, so be it. 1300 01:18:36,699 --> 01:18:38,800 JOPLIN: ♪ If it makes you feel good 1301 01:18:38,899 --> 01:18:41,065 ♪ Oh yes it did. 1302 01:18:41,166 --> 01:18:44,100 CAROL CROCKER: Our guy friends, we were spending time and talking 1303 01:18:44,199 --> 01:18:45,233 and they were scared. 1304 01:18:45,332 --> 01:18:47,199 And they were worried. 1305 01:18:47,300 --> 01:18:50,399 And they weren't sure what they were going to do. 1306 01:18:50,500 --> 01:18:54,199 And more discussion was happening about 1307 01:18:54,300 --> 01:18:58,100 whether this was a valid war. 1308 01:18:58,199 --> 01:19:02,800 And this was really, for me, the first time I opened my ears 1309 01:19:02,899 --> 01:19:05,300 to the war in a way other than 1310 01:19:05,399 --> 01:19:08,865 that it was about my brother's death. 1311 01:19:08,966 --> 01:19:11,666 I honored him. 1312 01:19:11,765 --> 01:19:16,199 I respected him for doing what he believed in. 1313 01:19:16,300 --> 01:19:18,233 But I did not agree with him. 1314 01:19:18,332 --> 01:19:22,966 JOPLIN: ♪ Come on, come on, come on and take it. ♪ 1315 01:19:23,065 --> 01:19:26,565 NARRATOR: Eva Jefferson was a sophomore at Northwestern. 1316 01:19:26,666 --> 01:19:29,865 A serviceman's daughter, she had entered college convinced 1317 01:19:29,966 --> 01:19:33,666 the American government would never mislead its citizens. 1318 01:19:33,765 --> 01:19:37,500 But for her, too, things had begun to change. 1319 01:19:37,600 --> 01:19:39,399 Earlier that year, 1320 01:19:39,500 --> 01:19:42,765 when a handful of black Northwestern students decided 1321 01:19:42,865 --> 01:19:45,033 to occupy the bursar's office 1322 01:19:45,132 --> 01:19:48,600 demanding African-American studies, she joined them, 1323 01:19:48,699 --> 01:19:52,565 then called her parents to tell them what she'd done. 1324 01:19:52,666 --> 01:19:55,466 EVA JEFFERSON PATERSON: And I said, "Mom and Dad, guess where I am? 1325 01:19:55,565 --> 01:19:57,233 We just took over the bursar's office." 1326 01:19:57,332 --> 01:19:59,166 They were horrified. 1327 01:19:59,265 --> 01:20:02,332 And upon reflection, of course they were horrified. 1328 01:20:02,432 --> 01:20:03,800 And they said, "If you don't get out of there 1329 01:20:03,899 --> 01:20:05,166 we're going to cut off your money." 1330 01:20:05,265 --> 01:20:07,666 So that was the moment in my own consciousness 1331 01:20:07,765 --> 01:20:09,800 when I became independent. 1332 01:20:09,899 --> 01:20:12,166 I thought, "Well, they're going to cut off my money. 1333 01:20:12,265 --> 01:20:13,899 C'est la vie." 1334 01:20:14,000 --> 01:20:18,100 NARRATOR: "The University met all our demands in three days," 1335 01:20:18,199 --> 01:20:19,500 she remembered. 1336 01:20:19,600 --> 01:20:22,300 "If you asked for black studies on Friday, 1337 01:20:22,399 --> 01:20:24,466 you got it on Monday." 1338 01:20:24,565 --> 01:20:28,865 PATERSON: It felt like something was happening that was profound, 1339 01:20:28,966 --> 01:20:30,733 that was irreversible. 1340 01:20:30,832 --> 01:20:32,733 But also you're 18, 19 years old. 1341 01:20:32,832 --> 01:20:33,666 It's exciting. 1342 01:20:35,765 --> 01:20:38,932 I felt as though a revolution was coming. 1343 01:20:39,033 --> 01:20:42,832 And I thought the revolution would be won by our side. 1344 01:20:50,500 --> 01:20:54,800 NARRATOR: Relations between parents and children, brothers and sisters, 1345 01:20:54,899 --> 01:20:58,065 were changing everywhere. 1346 01:20:58,166 --> 01:21:01,932 ANNE HARRISON BOWMAN: When I stood in the living room and I was hugging two brothers, 1347 01:21:02,033 --> 01:21:04,365 it didn't matter to me about their choices 1348 01:21:04,466 --> 01:21:08,666 or that they were on two different sides of the fence. 1349 01:21:08,765 --> 01:21:12,800 All I knew was that they were both my brothers 1350 01:21:12,899 --> 01:21:15,565 and they were both back in the same room and there we were. 1351 01:21:15,666 --> 01:21:19,765 NARRATOR: Captain Matt Harrison, Jr.-- Chips-- 1352 01:21:19,865 --> 01:21:25,832 had graduated West Point, served a tour in Vietnam 1353 01:21:25,932 --> 01:21:30,033 and took part in two of the war's bloodiest battles-- 1354 01:21:30,132 --> 01:21:33,765 Hill 1338 and Hill 875. 1355 01:21:36,033 --> 01:21:39,699 He was back stateside in the autumn of 1968, 1356 01:21:39,800 --> 01:21:43,832 when the family began to worry about his younger brother, Bob, 1357 01:21:43,932 --> 01:21:47,932 whom his siblings sometimes called Robin. 1358 01:21:48,033 --> 01:21:52,966 MATT HARRISON: He and I were just great pals since we were growing up 1359 01:21:53,065 --> 01:21:57,065 because we moved every year or two years. 1360 01:21:57,166 --> 01:21:59,265 And, you know, new set of friends 1361 01:21:59,365 --> 01:22:00,666 but always had my brother. 1362 01:22:02,300 --> 01:22:04,332 BOWMAN: Bob was in ROTC 1363 01:22:04,432 --> 01:22:08,533 and polished and buffed his shoes and had short hair 1364 01:22:08,632 --> 01:22:12,500 and said "Yes, sir" and "Yes, ma'am." 1365 01:22:12,600 --> 01:22:16,832 And then we moved to California his senior year in high school. 1366 01:22:16,932 --> 01:22:23,365 And he was the consummate blond surfer boy and cutting school. 1367 01:22:23,466 --> 01:22:25,632 And he was immediately very popular 1368 01:22:25,733 --> 01:22:28,100 and having a great time. 1369 01:22:31,166 --> 01:22:33,332 NARRATOR: Robin did not go to West Point, 1370 01:22:33,432 --> 01:22:36,166 entered Marin Junior College instead, 1371 01:22:36,265 --> 01:22:39,199 and then shocked his family by signing on 1372 01:22:39,300 --> 01:22:43,100 with the Marine-- not the Army-- Reserves. 1373 01:22:44,832 --> 01:22:49,000 HARRISON: At some point Robin became convinced that... 1374 01:22:49,100 --> 01:22:53,265 that the war was wrong, and not only wrong, it was immoral. 1375 01:22:53,365 --> 01:22:58,533 So he quit going to the Reserve weekends, 1376 01:22:58,632 --> 01:23:01,666 and because of that he was activated... 1377 01:23:01,765 --> 01:23:06,832 and was very likely now he was going to be going to Vietnam 1378 01:23:06,932 --> 01:23:10,166 as a Marine Corps rifleman. 1379 01:23:10,265 --> 01:23:12,565 I didn't think being a Marine Corps rifleman 1380 01:23:12,666 --> 01:23:15,565 was a very safe occupation. 1381 01:23:15,666 --> 01:23:18,666 And I didn't think Robin would be a particularly good 1382 01:23:18,765 --> 01:23:20,565 Marine Corps rifleman. 1383 01:23:20,666 --> 01:23:25,033 And so I just thought that this was a very bad outcome for him 1384 01:23:25,132 --> 01:23:26,600 and for the family. 1385 01:23:30,865 --> 01:23:34,365 NARRATOR: Matt Harrison knew that under military regulations, 1386 01:23:34,466 --> 01:23:37,832 if one brother was already in a combat zone, 1387 01:23:37,932 --> 01:23:41,199 a second brother need not accept assignment there. 1388 01:23:41,300 --> 01:23:44,832 So to keep Robin out of the war, 1389 01:23:44,932 --> 01:23:49,699 he volunteered for a second tour in Vietnam. 1390 01:23:49,800 --> 01:23:54,500 HARRISON: I was back in Vietnam I think in less than 30 days. 1391 01:23:54,600 --> 01:23:56,065 I was a seasoned veteran. 1392 01:23:56,166 --> 01:23:58,399 I was going to go command a company. 1393 01:23:58,500 --> 01:24:01,399 My chances of getting hurt were a lot less than Robin's were. 1394 01:24:01,500 --> 01:24:03,432 And if I did choose to make it a career, 1395 01:24:03,533 --> 01:24:05,565 the fact that I had had a second tour 1396 01:24:05,666 --> 01:24:07,699 as a rifle company commander was going to be good for me. 1397 01:24:07,800 --> 01:24:10,832 And so, you know, it wasn't entirely selfless. 1398 01:24:10,932 --> 01:24:15,365 I honestly don't remember a tremendous amount of dialogue 1399 01:24:15,466 --> 01:24:17,399 between my mom and dad. 1400 01:24:17,500 --> 01:24:20,600 I think they felt like if Bob had gone, 1401 01:24:20,699 --> 01:24:22,533 he would have been killed. 1402 01:24:22,632 --> 01:24:28,100 Whereas I think they felt that Chips was going to be okay. 1403 01:24:28,199 --> 01:24:33,065 I can't imagine, having had a son now go to Iraq, 1404 01:24:33,166 --> 01:24:38,565 how my mother could have gotten through every single day at all, 1405 01:24:38,666 --> 01:24:44,065 without believing very firmly that he was going to be fine. 1406 01:24:46,899 --> 01:24:49,632 NARRATOR: Matt Harrison's decision to serve a second tour 1407 01:24:49,733 --> 01:24:53,000 did not fully protect his brother Robin. 1408 01:24:53,100 --> 01:24:55,632 He went AWOL, was court-martialed 1409 01:24:55,733 --> 01:24:58,533 and sentenced to three months hard labor. 1410 01:24:58,632 --> 01:25:00,966 The sentence was suspended. 1411 01:25:01,065 --> 01:25:02,733 He returned to the Marines, 1412 01:25:02,832 --> 01:25:05,000 served as a chaplain's assistant, 1413 01:25:05,100 --> 01:25:08,399 applied for conscientious objector status, 1414 01:25:08,500 --> 01:25:12,865 and then went AWOL again. 1415 01:25:12,966 --> 01:25:15,600 VICTORIA HARRISON: I remember the FBI coming and knocking on the door 1416 01:25:15,699 --> 01:25:17,733 and looking for him. 1417 01:25:17,832 --> 01:25:21,565 They asked if Robert Harrison was there 1418 01:25:21,666 --> 01:25:25,466 and I just knew this wasn't good 1419 01:25:25,565 --> 01:25:28,832 and said "No" and slammed the door. 1420 01:25:28,932 --> 01:25:33,899 And Bob went out the back 1421 01:25:34,000 --> 01:25:36,332 and ran out to the main street. 1422 01:25:36,432 --> 01:25:41,399 And as I understand it, got in a car and left 1423 01:25:41,500 --> 01:25:44,500 and that was the last I saw of him. 1424 01:25:49,265 --> 01:25:52,932 BOWMAN: I don't think a military mom at the time would want 1425 01:25:53,033 --> 01:25:54,533 to announce, "My son has gone AWOL. 1426 01:25:54,632 --> 01:25:56,533 "My son has run to Canada. 1427 01:25:56,632 --> 01:25:59,632 "My son is all the words that were associated with it, 1428 01:25:59,733 --> 01:26:03,666 a deserter, a coward." 1429 01:26:03,765 --> 01:26:06,166 All of the things that these guys were called. 1430 01:26:08,466 --> 01:26:11,500 I don't think that's what those guys thought they were doing. 1431 01:26:11,600 --> 01:26:13,666 I do not think they thought they were deserting. 1432 01:26:13,765 --> 01:26:15,666 I do not think they thought they were cowards. 1433 01:26:15,765 --> 01:26:18,765 In fact, I think they thought they were very brave. 1434 01:26:22,765 --> 01:26:25,565 NARRATOR: When Matt Harrison assumed command of Alpha Company, 1435 01:26:25,666 --> 01:26:31,000 2nd Battalion, 14th Regiment of the 25th Infantry Division, 1436 01:26:31,100 --> 01:26:33,600 his Army had changed. 1437 01:26:36,466 --> 01:26:39,565 HARRISON: I was commanding a company of draftees, 1438 01:26:39,666 --> 01:26:42,000 almost none of whom wanted to be there. 1439 01:26:42,100 --> 01:26:43,765 They didn't want to be in the Army 1440 01:26:43,865 --> 01:26:45,699 and they certainly didn't want to be 1441 01:26:45,800 --> 01:26:47,699 an infantryman in Vietnam. 1442 01:26:47,800 --> 01:26:51,166 There were times when it was very difficult 1443 01:26:51,265 --> 01:26:53,565 to keep the men under control, 1444 01:26:53,666 --> 01:26:56,000 particularly if we had taken casualties on the way 1445 01:26:56,100 --> 01:26:57,600 into a village. 1446 01:26:59,233 --> 01:27:03,966 One of the things I learned is the veneer of civilization 1447 01:27:04,065 --> 01:27:06,733 is very thin-- very thin-- 1448 01:27:06,832 --> 01:27:11,932 on me, probably on you, and I think on everybody. 1449 01:27:13,733 --> 01:27:16,132 I just saw over and over again 1450 01:27:16,233 --> 01:27:20,199 some nice young guy out of Huron, South Dakota, 1451 01:27:20,300 --> 01:27:23,432 who back in Huron helped old ladies across the street 1452 01:27:23,533 --> 01:27:26,300 and went to church every Sunday. 1453 01:27:26,399 --> 01:27:33,533 It did not take long for that veneer of civilization to erode. 1454 01:27:33,632 --> 01:27:37,699 And he was now capable of doing things 1455 01:27:37,800 --> 01:27:40,800 that just simply are inhuman. 1456 01:27:43,166 --> 01:27:46,800 I was not willing to allow it to happen on my watch 1457 01:27:46,899 --> 01:27:49,399 and I didn't think it was good for the soldiers 1458 01:27:49,500 --> 01:27:50,932 to do those kinds of things. 1459 01:27:51,033 --> 01:27:55,100 Now, I'm not saying that we didn't do some horrific things. 1460 01:27:55,199 --> 01:27:56,100 We did. 1461 01:27:58,132 --> 01:28:01,699 But there's a difference between being spontaneous 1462 01:28:01,800 --> 01:28:04,300 and being premeditated. 1463 01:28:10,666 --> 01:28:14,899 NARRATOR: Many years later, Robin Harrison, still adrift, 1464 01:28:15,000 --> 01:28:17,065 got caught up in the world of drugs 1465 01:28:17,166 --> 01:28:23,565 and died 10,000 miles from home in a hotel room in Hong Kong, 1466 01:28:23,666 --> 01:28:26,865 another casualty, his brother Matt believed, 1467 01:28:26,966 --> 01:28:29,699 of the war in Vietnam. 1468 01:28:32,765 --> 01:28:36,399 ("Magic Carpet Ride" by Steppenwolf playing) 1469 01:28:39,399 --> 01:28:41,699 ♪ I like to dream 1470 01:28:41,800 --> 01:28:47,865 ♪ Yes, yes, right between my sound machine ♪ 1471 01:28:47,966 --> 01:28:50,765 ♪ On a cloud of sound I drift in the night ♪ 1472 01:28:50,865 --> 01:28:52,500 ♪ Any place it goes is right 1473 01:28:52,600 --> 01:28:56,300 ♪ Goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here ♪ 1474 01:28:56,399 --> 01:28:58,533 ♪ Well, you don't know... 1475 01:28:58,632 --> 01:29:00,632 MERRILL McPEAK: I dropped a bomb one afternoon 1476 01:29:00,733 --> 01:29:03,600 that must have had a broken fin or something on the bomb. 1477 01:29:03,699 --> 01:29:07,000 It just went crazy, went over and hit, you know, 1478 01:29:07,100 --> 01:29:09,699 a mile away from where I was aiming. 1479 01:29:09,800 --> 01:29:16,466 And it started a series of secondary explosions, 1480 01:29:16,565 --> 01:29:19,699 meaning that I had hit an ammunition dump, 1481 01:29:19,800 --> 01:29:21,199 or a cache of ammunition or something. 1482 01:29:21,300 --> 01:29:23,132 So it cooked off for 15 minutes. 1483 01:29:23,233 --> 01:29:26,932 As we were leaving, the thing was still blowing up. 1484 01:29:27,033 --> 01:29:29,632 The best result I achieved in a year, 1485 01:29:29,733 --> 01:29:32,966 it was a result of a gross miss from what I was aiming at. 1486 01:29:33,065 --> 01:29:37,600 Now that's the exact reverse of how you want to use air power. 1487 01:29:39,365 --> 01:29:42,466 NARRATOR: Major Merrill McPeak was a crack fighter pilot 1488 01:29:42,565 --> 01:29:46,632 when he arrived in Vietnam in late 1968. 1489 01:29:46,733 --> 01:29:50,600 At first, he had helped provide air support for the Army, 1490 01:29:50,699 --> 01:29:55,065 with a guaranteed number of sorties per day, he remembered, 1491 01:29:55,166 --> 01:29:58,132 "whether or not they had anything in front of them 1492 01:29:58,233 --> 01:29:59,533 worth blowing up." 1493 01:30:01,966 --> 01:30:05,000 MERRILL McPEAK: At the end of any sortie where we dropped bombs 1494 01:30:05,100 --> 01:30:07,065 on what we called "trees in contact" 1495 01:30:07,166 --> 01:30:09,733 because there was nothing important down there, 1496 01:30:09,832 --> 01:30:12,699 we would always get back a list of bomb damage assessment 1497 01:30:12,800 --> 01:30:14,265 from the forward air controller. 1498 01:30:14,365 --> 01:30:19,466 And it would be, like, "12 supply sources destroyed, 1499 01:30:19,565 --> 01:30:21,932 two structures collapsed." 1500 01:30:22,033 --> 01:30:23,432 All these metrics. 1501 01:30:23,533 --> 01:30:25,399 It was phony. 1502 01:30:25,500 --> 01:30:26,666 Just a waste of time. 1503 01:30:28,666 --> 01:30:32,100 NARRATOR: Then, McPeak was assigned to a top-secret squadron 1504 01:30:32,199 --> 01:30:34,865 seeking to pinpoint men and supplies 1505 01:30:34,966 --> 01:30:38,199 moving on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. 1506 01:30:38,300 --> 01:30:42,300 He and his fellow pilots called their unit Misty, 1507 01:30:42,399 --> 01:30:45,533 after its radio call sign. 1508 01:30:45,632 --> 01:30:47,265 McPEAK: I spent four months in Misty. 1509 01:30:47,365 --> 01:30:50,932 And that was the best four months of the war, 1510 01:30:51,033 --> 01:30:52,432 as far as I'm concerned, 1511 01:30:52,533 --> 01:30:55,932 because what we were doing was simple, straightforward, 1512 01:30:56,033 --> 01:30:57,432 and made sense. 1513 01:30:57,533 --> 01:31:01,265 We want to stop traffic from A to B down this dirt road. 1514 01:31:01,365 --> 01:31:04,300 That I can understand. 1515 01:31:04,399 --> 01:31:07,565 Somebody in Saigon wasn't saying, 1516 01:31:07,666 --> 01:31:10,365 "Go bomb trees at such-and-such a location." 1517 01:31:10,466 --> 01:31:13,265 We went out and actually found the target. 1518 01:31:22,632 --> 01:31:24,332 NARRATOR: It was dangerous work. 1519 01:31:24,432 --> 01:31:29,265 One out of five pilots was shot down. 1520 01:31:31,632 --> 01:31:33,033 (radio chatter) 1521 01:31:37,699 --> 01:31:41,699 Misty put up seven sorties a day from dawn to dusk, 1522 01:31:41,800 --> 01:31:44,966 on the lookout for signs of human activity-- 1523 01:31:45,065 --> 01:31:50,265 gardens, encampments, roadside trees coated with dust, 1524 01:31:50,365 --> 01:31:54,432 or wet roads on either side of fords 1525 01:31:54,533 --> 01:31:59,533 that signaled a truck convoy had recently passed through. 1526 01:32:03,565 --> 01:32:06,666 McPEAK: I have enormous respect for those truck drivers. 1527 01:32:08,300 --> 01:32:10,233 They left their homes in the North, 1528 01:32:10,332 --> 01:32:14,199 and they weren't drafted for a year or two. 1529 01:32:14,300 --> 01:32:15,899 They just left and didn't know 1530 01:32:16,000 --> 01:32:17,966 if they were ever going to come back. 1531 01:32:19,733 --> 01:32:23,432 NARRATOR: Although McPeak and his fellow pilots did not know it, 1532 01:32:23,533 --> 01:32:25,199 among the drivers threading their way 1533 01:32:25,300 --> 01:32:29,065 down the Ho Chi Minh Trail by night were hundreds of women. 1534 01:32:32,033 --> 01:32:36,132 NGUYEN NGUYET ANH: 1535 01:32:54,365 --> 01:32:57,966 NARRATOR: For three years, Nguyen Nguyet Anh drove her section 1536 01:32:58,065 --> 01:33:04,666 of the Trail, ferrying arms and supplies south, 1537 01:33:04,765 --> 01:33:09,432 then heading back north with cargoes of wounded men. 1538 01:33:11,932 --> 01:33:13,733 NGUYEN NGUYET ANH: 1539 01:33:22,632 --> 01:33:24,865 McPEAK: They drove in stages. 1540 01:33:24,966 --> 01:33:27,899 So they knew 15, 20 clicks of the road. 1541 01:33:28,000 --> 01:33:30,466 And they drove from A to B and back to A. 1542 01:33:34,899 --> 01:33:36,699 And then they rested, during the daytime, 1543 01:33:36,800 --> 01:33:39,800 and then the next night, they drove from A to B and back to A. 1544 01:33:41,199 --> 01:33:45,666 They had kind of memorized the road, which was very important, 1545 01:33:45,765 --> 01:33:48,365 because they were running without lights at night. 1546 01:34:13,765 --> 01:34:14,966 (jet engine roars) 1547 01:34:24,365 --> 01:34:27,932 McPEAK: One time I stumbled across a bunch of trucks backed up, 1548 01:34:28,033 --> 01:34:30,365 and that was a great morning for me. 1549 01:34:30,466 --> 01:34:32,699 Occasionally one of 'em would break down, 1550 01:34:32,800 --> 01:34:34,600 in a spot where the trucks behind it 1551 01:34:34,699 --> 01:34:36,565 would get trapped and couldn't back out of there. 1552 01:34:36,666 --> 01:34:41,699 So you try to strafe the last truck, so that it can't move. 1553 01:34:44,166 --> 01:34:46,899 And these are one-lane roads. 1554 01:34:47,000 --> 01:34:50,199 So once you get the back truck disabled, 1555 01:34:50,300 --> 01:34:52,533 then you just call in fighters. 1556 01:34:53,966 --> 01:34:56,300 You're shooting fish in a barrel. 1557 01:35:00,800 --> 01:35:04,699 NARRATOR: As she drove the Ho Chi Minh Trail, Anh thought constantly 1558 01:35:04,800 --> 01:35:07,500 of her fiancé Tran Cong Thang, 1559 01:35:07,600 --> 01:35:12,832 an army engineer she'd fallen in love with four years earlier. 1560 01:35:12,932 --> 01:35:17,065 He was also stationed somewhere on the Trail. 1561 01:35:17,166 --> 01:35:20,699 NGUYEN NGUYET ANH: 1562 01:35:34,765 --> 01:35:36,699 TRAN CONG THANG: 1563 01:36:11,865 --> 01:36:16,699 NARRATOR: Over 20,000 engineers, soldiers, and truck drivers died 1564 01:36:16,800 --> 01:36:19,966 along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. 1565 01:36:20,065 --> 01:36:24,233 72 military cemeteries would eventually be required 1566 01:36:24,332 --> 01:36:26,600 to hold their remains. 1567 01:36:29,100 --> 01:36:33,432 TRAN CONG THANG: 1568 01:36:47,132 --> 01:36:49,899 McPEAK: We dropped more tonnage of munitions 1569 01:36:50,000 --> 01:36:55,166 than the United States dropped in World War II, 1570 01:36:55,265 --> 01:36:58,132 most of it aimed at the Ho Chi Minh Trail. 1571 01:37:00,300 --> 01:37:02,699 We did not stop traffic down the trail. 1572 01:37:02,800 --> 01:37:06,233 And that is a big disappointment for me. 1573 01:37:06,332 --> 01:37:08,832 To this day, it irritates me. 1574 01:37:11,000 --> 01:37:14,332 The real failures were made at the policy level. 1575 01:37:16,432 --> 01:37:19,800 We were fighting on the wrong side. 1576 01:37:19,899 --> 01:37:23,533 The South, the government in the South was corrupt. 1577 01:37:23,632 --> 01:37:25,865 And its people knew it. 1578 01:37:25,966 --> 01:37:26,865 And we knew it. 1579 01:37:28,399 --> 01:37:29,666 I'll tell you something, 1580 01:37:29,765 --> 01:37:32,065 those truck drivers fought very well. 1581 01:37:32,166 --> 01:37:36,733 I would have been proud to fight with them. 1582 01:37:36,832 --> 01:37:39,300 So one of the things you got to do when you go to war 1583 01:37:39,399 --> 01:37:40,932 is pick the right side, okay. 1584 01:37:41,033 --> 01:37:42,300 Get the right allies. 1585 01:37:46,600 --> 01:37:51,000 NARRATOR: Merrill McPeak would serve 37 years and retire 1586 01:37:51,100 --> 01:37:53,600 as Air Force chief of staff. 1587 01:37:56,233 --> 01:38:00,065 Nguyen Nguyet Anh and Tran Cong Thang were reunited 1588 01:38:00,166 --> 01:38:02,832 after the war and married. 1589 01:38:07,000 --> 01:38:10,365 The peace we seek to win 1590 01:38:10,466 --> 01:38:15,033 is not victory over any other people, 1591 01:38:15,132 --> 01:38:19,500 but the peace that comes with healing in its wings; 1592 01:38:19,600 --> 01:38:22,466 with compassion for those who have suffered; 1593 01:38:22,565 --> 01:38:25,466 with understanding for those who have opposed us; 1594 01:38:25,565 --> 01:38:29,100 with the opportunity for all the peoples of this earth 1595 01:38:29,199 --> 01:38:31,033 to choose their own destiny. 1596 01:38:31,132 --> 01:38:33,733 ("Lonely Road" by the Sandals playing) 1597 01:38:33,832 --> 01:38:35,265 NARRATOR: Like Lyndon Johnson, 1598 01:38:35,365 --> 01:38:40,132 Richard Nixon had an ambitious agenda for his presidency-- 1599 01:38:40,233 --> 01:38:44,399 easing a quarter of a century of tensions with the Soviet Union 1600 01:38:44,500 --> 01:38:46,666 and opening the door to China, 1601 01:38:46,765 --> 01:38:50,565 whose existence the United States had refused to recognize 1602 01:38:50,666 --> 01:38:54,565 since the communists took over in 1949. 1603 01:38:54,666 --> 01:38:57,765 But as it had with Johnson, 1604 01:38:57,865 --> 01:39:02,265 the ongoing war in Vietnam threatened all those plans. 1605 01:39:04,233 --> 01:39:09,565 37,563 Americans had died there 1606 01:39:09,666 --> 01:39:12,365 by the time he took the oath of office. 1607 01:39:12,466 --> 01:39:16,199 "I'm not going to end up like LBJ, 1608 01:39:16,300 --> 01:39:18,233 "holed up in the White House, 1609 01:39:18,332 --> 01:39:20,466 afraid to show my face on the street," 1610 01:39:20,565 --> 01:39:22,600 Richard Nixon told an aide. 1611 01:39:22,699 --> 01:39:24,565 "I'm going to stop that war. 1612 01:39:24,666 --> 01:39:26,132 Fast." 1613 01:39:26,233 --> 01:39:30,765 Nixon's national security advisor was Henry Kissinger. 1614 01:39:30,865 --> 01:39:35,199 A refugee from Nazi Germany, he had taught government at Harvard 1615 01:39:35,300 --> 01:39:39,033 and was already a well-known advocate of a foreign policy 1616 01:39:39,132 --> 01:39:42,666 based on pragmatism, not ideology. 1617 01:39:42,765 --> 01:39:47,466 "Give us six months," Kissinger told a group of Quakers 1618 01:39:47,565 --> 01:39:49,733 demonstrating on Pennsylvania Avenue, 1619 01:39:49,832 --> 01:39:54,300 "and if we haven't ended the war by then, you can come back 1620 01:39:54,399 --> 01:39:56,500 and tear down the White House fence." 1621 01:39:59,432 --> 01:40:05,100 In February of 1969, the North launched yet another offensive. 1622 01:40:07,699 --> 01:40:12,600 This time, they killed 1,100 Americans in just three weeks. 1623 01:40:16,432 --> 01:40:18,865 Nixon did not feel he could retaliate 1624 01:40:18,966 --> 01:40:21,300 by resuming the bombing of the North 1625 01:40:21,399 --> 01:40:25,199 for fear of provoking the antiwar movement at home. 1626 01:40:25,300 --> 01:40:31,432 So in March, he secretly ordered B-52s to begin attacking 1627 01:40:31,533 --> 01:40:33,699 the North Vietnamese bases within Cambodia, 1628 01:40:33,800 --> 01:40:38,065 which had offered sanctuary to the enemy for years. 217193